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George Lucas was completely burned out.
In making Return of the Jedi — the third film in the original Star Wars trilogy — Lucas wanted to be more hands off and to help him do that, like he did for The Empire Strikes Back, he had someone else direct the film.
However, what he didn’t expect was that he had to be more involved with the details regardless and even expressed how he was the only one who had answers for everything about what was going on in the story and how certain things worked in this galaxy of his creation.
In 1982, while filming Jedi, he was interviewed by Audie Bock for an article that appeared in multiple newspapers in August of 1982, including the Miami Herald. Bock had already authored a book on Japanese Cinema and was friends with Akira Kurosawa, whom Lucas referred to as a major inspiration. In fact, for Star Wars, Lucas very heavily borrowed from Kurosawa’s film A Hidden Fortress and has generally been influenced by samurai films, especially for his light-saber space opera.
After reading the full print interview, most people would probably come away with one obvious thing: George Lucas was absolutely exhausted. Of course, while making Star Wars, he had significant health issues and a near heart attack. His stress level, especially toward the tail end of the process, was higher than he had ever experienced. He even expressed in this interview that it nearly killed him.
Those health issues were the main reason why he hired Irvin Kershner to direct Empire and Richard Marquand to direct Jedi. Yet, that didn’t help reduce his stress. Jedi was the final stretch of the most successful sci-fi film trilogy of all-time. It was also one of the most anticipated finales in movie series history. As such, Lucas’ involvement would be much greater than he’d originally planned.
As Lucas told Bock, quite plainly, “I’m not having fun.”
The Star Wars creator, who loved his idea so much that he fought for it to become realized, was now overworked and overwhelmed with it. His further words will likely make you conclude that he was practically hoping to divorce himself from Star Wars altogether. In fact, as he actually explains, “I’m only doing this because I started it and now I have to finish it. The next trilogy will be all someone else’s vision.”
Obviously he needed a break from the space saga, and when his work was completed on Jedi, he indeed took an extended break from the series that lasted just over a decade before he sat down in 1994 to finally write Episode I – The Phantom Menace. That movie, the beginning of a new Star Wars trilogy, was his own vision, though decades later he sold the spacey franchise all to Disney and — to most fans’ discontent — Star Wars is indeed now someone else’s vision.
Lucas was so honest in the 1982 interview that he even noted, “I smile a lot because if I don’t everyone gets depressed. But I’d rather be home in bed watching television.”
That’s a slightly jarring line for a Star Wars fan to read. Realizing that Lucas would rather be in bed watching TV than making Star Wars only makes me glad that he didn’t give up. Also, would he be watching Star Wars on that TV? Lucas was clearly desperate for rest.
Thankfully for all of us — and especially for Lucas — he survived without further health issues and went on to have fun with other films such as finishing the next installments of the Indiana Jones trilogy and being sure to avoid directing them. Ultimately, however, his love for Star Wars was reawakened after being away from it for so long. His joy for the story is greater than his is dislike for the stressful process of making it, but in the end, he made a three-film masterpiece.
He also mentions in the interview that after making the first film ⏤ despite all the problems it created for him ⏤ he realized how much he loved Star Wars. A few years later, his mentality had somewhat changed, buried under all of the extreme pressures of filmmaking.
Then again, maybe that’s what kept him going until the end: his love for Star Wars.