Movies - TV
Why Star Wars Creator George Lucas Didn't Direct The Empire Strikes Back
By MICHAEL BOYLE
One of the common misconceptions about "Star Wars" is that George Lucas directed and wrote the entire original trilogy. He oversaw the production and provided the stories for 5 and 6, but Irvin Kershner directed "The Empire Strikes Back," which leads one to ask why Lucas didn’t direct it himself.
"I hate directing," Lucas said in a 1980 interview. "It's like fighting a fifteen-round heavyweight bout with a new opponent every day. You go to work knowing just how you want a scene to be, but by the end of the day, you're usually depressed because you didn't do a good enough job ... It was easy to let go of directing."
Considering how successful the approach for "Empire" was, one can't help but wonder what the prequels would've looked like had Lucas let someone else take over the script and direction. It's hard to hold this all against Lucas too much, though, because "Star Wars" as a decades-spanning franchise wouldn't exist without him.