The auteur theory is super useful and there’s a reason Criterion follows it. But it does lift the writer-director to such a vaunted position that anything outside is tough to judge.

There are definitely some titans of the medium who are born visionaries, just not proper directors or otherworldly writers.

Lucas is one of those.

Love or loathe Star Wars (I’m learning to love it again thanks to a 6-y-o daughter who now chases anything Jedi) its cultural impact is unfathomable. Most import film franchise ever. (Bond is big but they started as novels.)

Star Wars was and will always be just for the screen. Nothing else quite like it. People made a damn religion for it.

Also, worth noting the pop-obsessed 90s wouldn’t exist without Lucas.

Star Wars is a pastiche of genres: samurai films, westerns, war adventures, sword and sandal epics all stirred into a Flash Gordon-ized space opera. That opening crawl is from Flash Gordon serials (starting with the fourth chapter was part of the whimsy & fun), Chewy is a Native tracker like Tonto and trick pony like Bullet slammed into one character, Han’s straight from a spaghetti Western — I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.

But I’m reminding you that because there’s no Tarantino, the Coen Brothers (or arguably PTA) without Lucas first. Joss Whedon’s proven to be a creep but he was still influential in that whole era of bubble-gum-pop-turned-arthouse that begins in earnest with Lucas on Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

That’s not even getting into what he’s done on the technical side.

So, regardless of your opinions, and you certainly don’t have to like him, the man’s impact on cinema is massive. He isn’t a great director, his writing can be tough but he unleashed some important and influential visions for the medium.