Darth_Evil: Yeah, I was just watching "Empire of Dreams" and you can see the group effort that went into it. Lucas is a fine filmmaker, but like all good filmmakers, you need help in making a great movie. Without a group effort, you might as well never make it. There was no "group effort" on the PT. Lucas did almost everything, and then a handful of people went and made everything with CGI. So because you saw one doccumentary about the classic trilogy, you assume Lucas made the prequels in a creative vacuum? Lucas has always surrounded himself with people who have their own artistic backbones. He tried to get some of the same people to help him polish up TPM's script. Lawrence Kasdan wouldn't do it, because he felt he would only "dillute" Lucas' vision. He tried to get Frank Darabont to help polish the script, but he wouldn't do it because it was a non-guild production. In the end he had some uncredited help from Carrie Fisher.
Darth_Evil: Now, this may be off topic, but I've also noticed that in Empire of Dreams, when you look at George Lucas on the set, he looks like the kind of guy who makes great films. But when you look at him in interviews from today, he looks like a big idiot who doesn't know what he's doing. Steve Speilberg has always looked like the kind of guy who makes great films. Nothing's changed. But what changed with George? I think I know the answer. So Speilberg looked the the kind of guy who makes great movies while he was working on Hook? Or the Flintstones?Darth_Evil: When the 20th anniversary of Star Wars came up, Lucas realized he never had moved on to other things, and that made him feel "insecure." His other friends he'd gratuated with (Speilberg, DePalma, Scorcese, Coppola) had all made dozens of great films, and still were. This insecurity made him change his films and re-release them to make sure people remembered who he was and that he made great films.
And it worked.
Darth_Evil: He made the PT for the same reason, and you can see the insecurity in the special editions and the PT, especially in the PT. It never has a focus, it's just a lot of stuff that tries to impress us because he was insecure. He wanted to prove he was as good as his friends, but the truth is, to do that, you can't define yourself by one film or one series.
Just because you don't see the point to them doesn't neccesarily mean the -films- are lacking focus. I can see your insecurty regarding the SE/Prequels, but I really don't see Lucas'. He by all appearances seems to think they turned out as he wanted them to.