Except the words need not be spoken. Artists in the past and artists in the future will sell their quote "artist soul" to get rich and make a buck.
The example is that the original trilogy was compelling and moving as a human story as well as an exciting piece of popcorn sci fi action/space fantasy entertainment.
The prequels were almost souless. Full of over the top bad humor, wooden pathetic acting, bad writing and directing. And almost nothing more than special effects reels to shop to other studios on what ILM can do with CGI.
The guy who hated the entire corporate idea and ideal who refused to take over his fathers business because he didn't want to become like him became the corporation. The little guy underdog artist who worked for a small personal system of making small films on your own terms outside hollywood became the new hollywood along with Spielberg. He eventually betrayed the very ideals he and Coppola had at Zoetrope in the 60's.
The entire problem is Lucas started out like one of the rebels from the rebel Alliance and became the new galactic empire . Started out as luke and became more like vader. The guy fighting the man became the man.
It is even more ironic if you watch and realize his older films are all about escaping the control of the "machine" and machine men. To hold onto ones own humanity.
Cgi made lucas films lifeless and sterile.
His success was his own undoing as ironic as that sounds.
He made better films under budgetary constraints. Once he had the money that he could do anything his films were episodes 1-3 of the prequels. Also if you no longer have people telling you their honest opinion of a bad idea and replacing writers and artists and producers and directors with sense with corporate yes men.
There is an axiom that exists in all forms of life. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. In Lucas case his sucess has blinded him, and star wars has chained him down to where he cannot do anything remotely new, different or creative. He is a slave to the franchise.
It will end up ruining him as an evolving artist just as star trek saddled and destroyed Gene Roddenberry's career as a writer.
The prequels imho come out of a postmodern sensibility of darkness and cyniscism and do not reflect the positives of Lucas other films like the original star wars trilogy. He claimed he learned his lesson in making THX 1138 that no one wanted to see movies about how terrible the world was, so why in the name of heck did he do the prequels at all?