I am curious what George Lucas' version would be like if he didn't give up.

I’m not.

LOL -- even if I somewhat agree with @ant, too.

Lucas maybe doesn't get enough credit for being a genius, Tolkien-esque "world creator".

Sure seems like he was at his best when he took that creative genius and paired it up with other people (NOT yes-men) to cover screenwriting duties (anything beyond broad-strokes, particularly dialog), directing, and probably casting etc. also. Given that, I breathed a sigh of relief when he sold to Disney. Star Wars wasn't going anywhere but down with him at the helm, but I like what Disney has done with it.

Then again, what do I know? His franchise to do with as he pleased. Just so happened that *I'm* also pleased with the net result...

I honestly don't know about Lucas.

He COULD be a Tolkien-esque visionary... or he could have taken a bunch of pre-existing elements (Kurosawa, Flash Gordon, the Dam Busters) and meshed them together and lucked out with an insanely talented group of people.

I don't want to write him off (I spent 20 years idolizing him from childhood to when I finally admitted how bad the prequels were).

But I also can't ignore the argument that much of what I love about Star Wars comes not from Lucas, but from Ralph McQuarrie's art, Ben Burtt's sound, John Williams' soundtrack (with a massive nod to Holst as well), Lawrence Kasdan's dialogue and the performances of Ford, Guinness and James Earl Jones.

AFAIK Lucas had a very rudimentary naive vision of what the original film should be like, and the initial nerdish freak show version was totally rehashed in editing to create an actual story with characters, which the rest of the franchise is based on.

I blame Lucas for all the awkward dialogue and impractical creatures and creations in that whole strange universe that he gets credit for creating.

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