There are a lot of things that you can say about George Lucas. He’s a great visual story-teller. He’s fantastic at pushing the bounds of visuals in movies. That doesn’t mean that he’s perfect. He can’t write dialogue to save his life. He’s not an exceptionally good director. And his overall writing is spotty at best. With someone to help interpret the vision (helping him write or direct) or some other limitation to force him to push the bounds of his creativity, his work absolutely shines. Just look at the Indiana Jones trilogy and the original Star Wars trilogy. Given carte blanche, it turns into the prequel trilogy.

His number one ally in making movies has always been John Williams. The greatest thing that Steven Spielberg ever contributed to film was making John Williams a superstar. But what happens when you take John Williams’ amazing soundtrack away from Lucas? It’s not pretty.