generalfrevious said:

I seriously believe that there was only one movie at the beginning: Star Wars ..... There were no sequels in mind when it was made in 1976, hence why the first film feels self-contained compared with the others. It was never meant to be a trilogy until the money started rolling in.

Bingo. (edit, mine)

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Regarding his worrying about the story or the next film only after it starts; The whole issue of "There is another" is a perfect example.

There are interviews with him stating that he had no idea who "...another" might be - while they were actually filming the scene - or - that he added the line to increase tension, never giving any thought to it at all. Lucas has told so many versions of the truth through the decades, he can't keep them all straight.

Either way, it's the very antithesis of his Original Vision BS he regularly trots out. Once writer's block reared it's ugly head - again, "another" became the princess. A lazy, hackneyed way out.

If he had anything even resembling an Original Vision, he wouldn't have hired Alan Dean Foster to write a sequel.

What's always struck me as extremely weird are the legions of people (not here really) who want to gift Lucas with some sort of title; Awesome Writer, Master Film Maker, etc. He had two major hits (American Graffiti, Star Wars) and switched to formula and marketing.

I'm not a fan of Empire, but I'll concede that it's on par with the first (just not for me). He has a hand in a hand in a few other blockbusters e.g. Indiana Jones series, but like Star Wars and American Graffiti before them, there were other people involved in the writing and film making. The rest of his films are mediocre on their best day.