Frankly, the Director's Guild was being a collective group of asshats over the situation. Lucas refused to add the director's name to the beginning of the films because he wanted the opening text and crawl to remain intact to preserve the mythological feel of the franchise. Notice how the director name still didn't appear in Episode VII. Nobody seemed to care once the word "Disney" entered the discussion. And really, I think George started to lose touch when he divorced his wife Martha, who was one hell of a film editor and one of the few people on earth who could ground George and tell him "no, George, this is a terrible idea". It happens to creators all the time when fame and fortune begins to cloud their judgment. Their peers slowly drift away and the replacements don't have the power, influence, or stature to challenge the person because they're not peers, they're underlings. ****, look what Jackson did to The Hobbit. He created the greatest set of fantasy movies in history and then took a Cleveland Steamer all over The Hobbit a decade later. It doesn't mean LotR is somehow diminished because he created bad films later, nor does it mean Jackson was lucky or less capable while filming the original trilogy.