I’ve always thought this was a little bit of a disingenuous argument from George Lucas‘s camp. I mean, who did he ask? Steven Spielberg? Ron Howard? Why not dig up the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock while we’re at it?

There would have been any number of really solid directors below that tier, who could have done a better job with the actors than George Lucas did. Hell, Richard Marquand from Return of the Jedi was there as a non guild director from British TV, pretty much specifically and only to make sure that the actors gave reasonable performances, and waddaya know? For all the weaknesses of that movie, The cast still makes it perfectly watchable and enjoyable.

@Shyfer @kalpol

Serious agreement. A better director, and to be fair to Lucas, a director than wasn't busy dealing with all the new special effect technology, and a bit of work on the script to sell Anakin's fall to the dark side a bit better and we would have had a solid trilogy.