The Star Wars prequels are one of the biggest blemishes in George Lucas’ directing career, but they were actually born out of frustrations Lucas developed while working on one of his great successes, Indiana Jones. In 1977, American Graffiti director George Lucas catapulted himself into eternal movie fame with Star Wars. Shortly after releasing, the space opera had made hundreds of millions of dollars. It has since spawned an entire expanded universe consisting of more sequels, prequels, comics, games, novelizations, and more. However, the Star Wars prequels, which came out in the late 90s and early 2000s, are considered by many fans to be the worst films in the franchise (though that opinion has somewhat shifted with Disney's movies).
After the release of Star Wars, Lucas turned away from directing to focus on writing and film production. The production company he had founded in 1975, Lucasfilm, Ltd., was flush with cash. During this time, George Lucas worked as the executive producer on a number of cult classics including Labyrinth and The Land Before Time. However, it was his work alongside friend and colleague Steven Spielberg as the story writer and executive producer of Indiana Jones that gave Lucas the itch to return to his sci-fi world.
Recently, Disney+ released the first parts of a documentary about the making of The Mandalorian. In Disney Gallery: Star Wars: The Mandalorian, episode two, “Legacy,” current president of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, explains how Indiana Jones inspired Lucas to return to Star Wars: “I think what happened during Indy was that he was not on the floor directing… they get antsy after a while at not being able to be on that floor - telling stories, making movies.” As a writer and producer, Lucas was far less involved in the minutiae of how Indiana Jones made it from soundstage to silver screen.
His return to a directing role for the Star Wars prequels put Lucas back into a more controlling sphere. One of the biggest failings of the prequels is their excesses. When the original trilogy came out, Lucas’ then wife Marcia worked behind the scenes on their editing. She even won an Academy Award for it in 1977, and her skilled eye helped temper Lucas’ wild ideas. However, by the time the prequels rolled around, Marcia and George had gone through a divorce. He was George Lucas, creator of Star Wars and Indiana Jones; people were far less inclined to tell him no. Lucas himself didn’t even originally want to direct the movies, as he understood the importance of balancing power in movie creation. Ron Howard explains during an episode of MTV’s Happy Sad Confused podcast that Lucas approached him, Robert Zemeckis, and Steven Spielberg with the job, but all three turned it down. This left Lucas to direct on his own.
Kennedy also explains how the minimal CGI in Indiana Jones pushed Lucas back into Star Wars. After all, Lucas “love[d] pushing technology.” The special effects in the original Star Wars trilogy were cutting edge; Lucasfilm has been behind a number of impressive projects since, from Jurassic Park to The Avengers. The late 90s and early 2000s, however, were a strange transition period. CGI was all the rage. 1995’s Toy Story proved the lasting power of computer-generated movies and Lucas, like many others, wanted to experiment with that. The CGI in the Star Wars prequels is one of its most critiqued elements, so much so that future installments returned to practical effects. However, at the time Lucas was directing them, he was restless from his time at Indiana Jones and looking for new ways he could push the technological envelope.