Perhaps, but what the Kurtz comment lead me to believe is that 1) making Star Wars is a lot of hard work so he was looking for some corners to cut. This is understandable. I'm led to believe that he had a heart attack making the first one, so i can understand him wanting to make it easier. I don't have to like what he produces when making it easier on himself, but I can understand. 2) Unfortunately, where he decided to cut corners was the story. He was still drawing on Campell, hence the whole chosen one/balance to the force crap in the prequels. I guess he felt that if he drew on old myths, it would make writing easier since the story was already written thousands of years ago. All he had to do was steal it. Problem is, the story is what made Star Wars such a success. there were literally hundreds of Star Wars wanna be's in the last thirty years, and only a handful even come close. The main reason was that many of the other movies had piss poor stories and relied on the special effects to hold the audience interest. And it did for an opening weekend and then tapered off and then no one bothered to think of them much after that. With this approach, Lucas has made Star Wars into the worst knock off of Star Wars. This boggles the mind.