One Particular Star Wars Movie Was The Reason George Lucas Left Director's Guild
Who could have known that a seemingly minor aspect of the film would cause Lucas to leave the Guild altogether.
George Lucas is undoubtedly one of the most legendary directors of all time, having created such huge and successful franchises as Indiana Jones ( in collaboration with Steven Spielberg ) and Star Wars.
These giants practically set him up for life, allowing Lucas to semi-retire relatively early, while other great directors like Martin Scorsese and the aforementioned Spielberg continue to work to this day.
But did you know that despite being such a big name in the industry, Lucas had to leave the Director's Guild of America for a rather surprising reason regarding one of the Star Wars movies?
It all happened because of... credits. Specifically, the opening credits, which have become a unique Star Wars feature over time, with every movie except Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) opening this way.
You see, the opening credits, which listed the main creators and actors involved in the production of the film, were an industry standard at the time, whereas now full credits appear after the end of the film.
While Episode IV - A New Hope, which was simply called Star Wars when it was released in 1977, began the same way, the Guild had no problem with it because Lucas was the director of the film, and the title "A Lucasfilm Limited Production" before the opening credits was perceived as him giving himself credit, which was perfectly acceptable.
However, with the next film, Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, the situation was different as Lucas stepped down as director and Irvin Kershner took his place.
And even though Kershner didn't mind starting the movie the same way as the previous one, the guild saw it as a violation of the rules, so Lucas left the guild to preserve his vision of the movie.
This event also affected the production of the next film, Episode VI - Return of the Jedi, as George had to find a director who wasn't a member of the guild and finally chose Richard Marquand, who was Welsh and therefore had no ties to the American film industry at that time.
Source: Slashfilm