Once upon a time in Hollywood, writer/director Frank Darabont wrote a script for Indy 4 that he believed to be a great continuation of the franchise. Steven Spielberg loved it. Harrison Ford loved it. George Lucas… well, he didn’t love it so much. “You have a fantastic script,” Darabont told him. “I think you’re insane, George.” George Lucas wasn’t swayed. “You can say things like that to George, and he doesn’t even blink,” Darabont later revealed. “He’s one of the most stubborn men I know.”
Poor George. He has made some truly terrible decisions over the course of his long career, and we’re talking about actually mind-boggling creative decisions that just wouldn’t make sense to a normal person. Lucas has made a couple of good decisions too, I guess: He let Irvin Kershner take the reins for The Empire Strikes Back, he sold LucasFilm to Disney, and American Graffiti was one of the best films of the 70s (crazy, right?). And to give the man some credit where it’s due, he did invent Star Wars, a movie which made millions and millions of people, like, super happy. We can be thankful for that, at least.
But let’s recall that time Darabont called Lucas “insane” over the Indy 4 script. Insane is a word that gets thrown around everyday in a casual sense (what a society we live in!): “Why do I have to be home at ten, mom? You’re insane!” – just one creative example of such casual use. And then you look at all the genuinely bizarre things George Lucas has commissioned, produced, and written over the years. All the products he’s said, “yeah, you can put Star Wars branding on that” to. Are these the creations of a man with his mind in tact?
The purpose of this guide is as a tool which might help explain to somebody with no idea who George Lucas is what the big freakin’ deal is regarding that questionable sanity of his. So without further ado, let’s take a look at a selection of the worst things to have seeped out from between Lucas’ hairy earholes.
