This all ties back into the notion of how George wanted to build up the ranch and company to be the ultimate anti-establishment filmmaking collective to do what Zoetrope couldn’t achieve and then got lost in the interim and forgot why he was making films in the first place. I think Zombie in SECRET HISTORY was the first to really delve into this wholeheartedly and show just how far back this problem ran. The recent GL: a Life biography by Brian Jay Jones does a great job at setting all of this stuff in a historical context in one place.

We all talk about the loss of guiding voices plus filters of dissenting opinions and this is absolutely true.
This is why projects never happened or eventually did and thus for example RADIOLAND MURDERS was finally done in the early 90’s over-managed by George and turned in to a partial tech showcase.

Eventually the paradigm switched from telling great stories and trying new things to simply building and always fortifying the company. Thus nothing happened post Indy outside of Willow. Every other thing was revisiting the past while playing with new tech toys and methodologies. Young Indy in many ways was the groundwork and dry run for the Prequels and has most of the same inherent issues.
Jympson was the original editor and the issue was that he cut everything in a traditional assembly manner which made everything run long and not work whatsoever.

To be honest I’ve never seen Willow in its entirety. The OOP status kept me from doing so for a while and I never watched the LD because its rot city. I need to finally sit down and watch it.