George’s worst decision (or perhaps more accurately his biggest mistake) was allowing himself to get sucked into the merchandising machine. Most of the problems people have with the franchise as a whole can be traced back to this.

The development of RoTJ was basically entirely shaped by the toy companies; both Gary Kurtz and David Prowse have confirmed this independently. Rather than focusing on crafting a satisfying dramatic conclusion to the trilogy, the final chapter became little more than a glorified toy advert in George’s eyes.

This was of course followed by the constant re-releases of the trilogy in the late 80s and early 90s, the creation of the EU, the Shadows of the Empire project (which seemed cool at the time but looking back now was a clear exploitation of the fans while not providing anything of any real substance), and of course everything from 1997 onwards. All blatant cash grabs.

It seems to me that George was bored of Star Wars by 1980, but recognised its money making potential and so continued to squeeze as much out of it as possible, to the detriment of the actual story. I find his whole “woe is me” attitude in response to all the flak he got for the SEs and PT a bit rich when he’s done nothing but take advantage of the people who made him rich for the past 25 years.