I should clarify, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a creative changing their mind about something. All stories evolve in the telling of them, and writers are dynamic people who’s vision of their own work is prone to shifting over time.
For example, when JRR Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, it was just a straightforward children’s fantasy adventure story, in his mind. It wasn’t meant to be the prelude to the epic fantasy of LOTR. The Ring was just a magic ring Bilbo found, not the Ring of the Dark Lord himself, who also happened to be the Necromancer of Mirkwood. Tolkien even went back and rewrote the ending to the Gollum chapter of The Hobbit, to make the Ring more consistent with its portrayal in LOTR. And even when Tolkien first started writing LOTR, it started out as merely a sequel to The Hobbit, before ballooning into something bigger and grander.
In a similar way, Star Wars started out as just “the adventures of Luke Skywalker” before ballooning into a drama about the Skywalker family.
The point is, it’s ok that George’s story ideas morphed over time. The problem is that George tends to forget or deny that the change ever occurred. He says “It was always meant to be this way,” when it clearly wasn’t. That’s what people take issue with. If he were more upfront about having changed his mind about things, then people wouldn’t be misled into thinking otherwise.
George’s ideas morphed over time. But unlike Tolkien who loved the work, his languages, and spent time answering letters from fans… George seems to actively hate the fans who made the OOT a success, and doesn’t really like directing movies. The overall denial vibe is also very weird, but I think if the changes were any good people would complain a lot less. Instead it’s like he’s always working on a once classic car and all the tinkering is … well…
I agree. To be honest, I personally think George doesn’t understand what makes the fans like Star Wars. That’s why I basically ignore everything George says and why I base my Star Wars opinions on a Death of the Author point of view, rather than a Word of God point of view. In fact, it could even said that I like Star Wars despite of Lucas’ opinions, rather than because of them. For example, I absolutely hate Lucas’ ideas about attachment and about how the Force works, I find them to be very simplistic and boring. What keeps me from saying: “Well, perhaps Star Wars is not for me as a whole” are the alternative interpretation of these subjects given by the EU authors and characters, like Vergere’s philosophy about the Force and Luke’s ideas about attachment in the Jedi Academy Trilogy and The New Jedi Order. Besides, it’s absolutely impossible to find two quotes from George that don’t contradict each other, because the man changed his mind all the time. Therefore basing your ideas on George’s vision is impossible as well, because (apart from certain very core elements) he never had a solid and stable vision in the first place. So, the better thing you can do to enjoy Star Wars without going crazy is ignoring George’s opinions (unless some of them make sense to you) and judging everything based on a purely Death of the Author point of view.