The head of FOX circa 1975/76 Alan Ladd, Jr. had faith in the Star Wars story idea & in George as a Director, but he knew Sci-Fi films did not do well with moviegoers of that time (In ticket sales that is). I'm not sure someone like Zanuck would have supported Lucas in that way if he had been in charge during that time. Alan Ladd, Jr. (A BIG gun in Hollywood) had the faith to leave George to himself to make the first film (on a standard 10 million budget), that shows something of major support. But it's true that Lucas has had nothing but a group of "sycophants" working for him post Empire Strikes Back. Empire works because Lucas respected Ivan Kershner, and left him alone most of the time. Ivan Kershner made a film Ivan himself wanted and used his own ideas during production without asking George at times, and changing some of the set ideas on the fly. After that film, it was all about what George wanted and nothing but what George the movie GOD wanted... It's sad, but all George wanted was what he personally thought was cute, and everyone who works with him seems to agree with everything he wants, as lots of people have said here on this forum. We can see as far back as the Making Magic CD-ROM from 1995 how his team had just bowed to every whim George came up with for the new shots for the S.E. without any kind of creative criticism at all. Just a lot of forced giggles and "That's great George GREAT! GREAT!" from his team... I bet Gary Kurts kept George under some control, and his not being part of Return of the Jedi shows. Richard Marquand could in no way have had the freedom and support or ability that Ivan Kershner did, and being such a un-tried director did not help. You can tell by the end product that Richard Marquand just gave Lucas 100% what Lucas expected, and did not try to make it a signature film of his own. This has been the status quo at Lucasfilm ever since.