once a director starts believing his own hype it’s all downhill. George is, to me, a very tragic figure, someone that used to be great but eventually began phoning it in because, hell, he’s George Lucas and he’s a genius so it’s gonna be great no matter what.
I wholeheartedly agree with this take. I also believe that even immensely creative and talented people can have a finite ‘reservoir’ of genius. We see a lot of this in books and music with “one-hit wonders”, who have one or two breakout smash hits and can then never really replicate that success in the future. They’ve run out of stories and/or the ability to tell them in a convincing, fresh or original voice.
I think it’s part of why you see him re-treading old ground and messing with his old works over and over again, he’s searching for new inspiration by working in a construct that reminds him of when he “had it”. (The other part is $$$, of course.)