Even when he is making bad films and stealing classic ones, he's actually still doing some cool stuff. He's invested a lot of money into the technology sector with all of his obsessions for gizmos and computers. We would be years behind in most respects--the industry infrastructure, the talent pool, cameras, CG, software and hardware, etc.--were it not for the fact that he invested in these things before most people did.

That's actually what Lucas said he wanted to be remembered for more than anything else. I remember reading an interview with him--it might have been Time--around when Episode II came out and he hoped that a hundred years in the future he would be remembered as a guy who helped move the state of the art forward when digital technology was first emerging.