Lucas’ actual hands on involvement with Howard is debatable. He took on the Executive Producer mantle mostly as a favor to director Willard Hyuck and Gloria Katz, his old American Graffiti script writers. It was their baby as much as Labyrinth was Jim Henson’s baby. And I never hear anyone praise or scorn George for that film, even though he’s the executive producer on it. Willow on the other hand…
And I did see Strange Magic. I like it more than Frozen. 😉 Was pretty cruel of Disney to dump it the way they did. Pity there isn’t a Blu Ray release.
As a fan of Howard the Duck, I’ve always been interested in how much Lucas was involved in it. I think he actually had alot of creative input into the film. At this time in the mid 80s, Lucas was very interested in music and music videos. He had worked on Captain Eo and was dating Linda Rondstadt. The decision to make Beverly a rock singer was probably Lucas. Also the pacing of the film which is breakneck is completely Lucas. I’m almost certain he did some second unit shots and was absolutely on set. Lucas would later say he wanted Howard to be more of a film noir detective movie but this is absolute revisionism on his part which we’ve seen before from him.
It’s true that at the time Lucas was a producer on a few projects. He was even onset everyday on Return to Oz to help Walter Murch. But knowing Lucas, when it has his name on it specifically as a “Film by George Lucas” like Howard does, he was probably involved in many aspects of the production down to the editing.
Back on topic, I think the Charlie Rose interview is probably most truthful interview Lucas has ever given on Star Wars. He admits he should have directed Empire and Jedi which lends more evidence that he doesn’t like Empire that much. He also admits that he liked 30% of ANH which is much lower then his usual 70%, so he’s truthful the whole move makes him cringe. And of course that he thinks the ideas behind TFA are rubbish. I think this interview explains the prequels whether you like or hate them. It shows he was trying to improve on the OT and remove any aspect of the OT that he hated. On viewing TFA for the third time, it struck me that Lucas probably hated all the fun joking moments of the OT since they are utterly absent from the prequels or kept to a bare minimum. The Phantom Menace was I think the film Lucas had always wanted to make. I just wish he saw ANH as the masterpiece and best of the series (my opinion) that it is.