Does anyone think the fans are too hard on Lucas though?
Look at the people who he worked with and what they did since. Kershner Directed Never Say Never Again. A non Ion Canon Bond Film. Which sucked Hardcore other than It being cool to see connery again and the women in it. Bad Knockoff of a pretty good film called thunderball.
Kasden went on to make a cheapie horror movie based on a Stephen King novel. Never wrote another good script after Raiders and Empire Strikes Back. The Critics Liked Body Heat's script and Direction but i never saw it so i cannot comment on it.
The Huycks went on to write Radioland Murders, Howard the Duck, and Temple of doom.
Kurtz did practically nothing after leaving Lucasfilm except Dark Crystal and Return to OZ. That is more than the others have done sucessfully.
Hamill became a voice actor and never got the chance to be the leading star again of a movie. Carrie Fisher gained weight and lost her mind to drugs and depression for several years.
The only Person i know of Who survived the Lucas/star wars curse was Harrison Ford.
He made a lot of action movies and movies where he did actually act in them.
Once his career was in the toilet after Hollywood Homicide and Firewall he came back to Lucas to do Indiana Jones IV cause he needs the money from years of non money makers.
Star Wars almost cost Lucas his friendship with Francis Ford Coppola according to Dale Pollock, and Star Wars did cost him his marriage.
So you cannot stay young and at the top of your game forever. Eventually your Later works become pale shadows of the successes of younger days.
Lucas is not the exception to the rule. It happens with Movie Stars and Rock Stars too.
Lucas could try and go back to his Maverick Filmaker days and make those Experimental Films he's been talking up for years and Reclaim his street cred. American Graffiti and Star Wars came out of being in touch with his youth. THX 1138 and his student films came out of a sense of montage and cine verite of the french new wave experimental films. He and Coppola at Zoetrope in San Francisco had a dream to make small personal films to effect a generation until Zoetrope died. Coppola regrouped and made the Godfather a movie he did not want to make to get him out of debt. Eventually Francis would reestablish Zoetrope but it was not the same old Bohemian Filmakers society of old. The new Zoetrope was Hollywood and Lucas had his own company Lucasfilm LTd and wanted nothing of hollywood. All his friends have to make their films on Hollywoods Terms. To this day he remains independant from the system. He has tried to get his friends to abandon the system and join him in his rebellion against hollywood.
He was confused as to why Spielberg Decided to work for Universal, and set up Amblin in hollywood. and later dreamworks another studio following the set rules of hollywood. Martin Scorcese makes his films also in the studio system he needs the studio backing and funding to get his films made.
Lucas desire to abandon film and adopt digital High definition video is another point of being independant from the system as well as a cost cutting issue. He wants Scorcese and Spielberg to do the same.
With HD Video he can develop the Rushes or the dailies on his own personal network of computers instead of having to go to a Film Processing lab. The Turn around time is non existant he can watch what he films on monitors and watch the days takes later as he wants. In the past Dailies were really weeklies. With digital you can watch them within realtime.