“My thoughts on [George] Lucas are basically that he’s the devil,” writes Jeff Wells. “Which is to say a very real metaphor for total corruption of the spirit.”

Wells offered up these “thoughts” allegedly in response to Devin Feraci’s interview with Lucas for CHUD (Lucas did a junket for Clone Wars last weekend (our own Kevin Kelly was there and his coverage is forthcoming). Wells doesn’t actually give any indication that he read the interview before comparing George Lucas to Satan, but maybe he should.

Quoted in Wells’ post, Feraci says he “cornered him on why he hasn’t made one of those art films he’s always going on about,” and Lucas “blew off the question” by saying that he hasn’t had time to follow his dreams, what with this new Star Wars animated movie, his upcoming live action Star Wars TV show, the Slave Leia blow-up doll collection*, etc.

In his writeup, Feraci quotes Lucas definition of art––”a lot of it has to do with engineering; trying to figure out how to create what you imagine”––and expresses skepticism that this ill-defined “art film” that Lucas has said he wants to make would really amount to the creative freeing that the filmmaker has suggested he’s looking for. “Listening to him talk I got the impression that the art movie represented a challenge, not an opportunity for expression. The man is an engineer first and foremost, and what gets him excited is solving problems, not telling stories.”

Wells buys into the idea that Lucas’ ability to create “real” art has been lost, because “once he got fat and successful he slowly began to morph into an amiable corporate-minded Darth Vader figure.” Read: he’s only interested in the money. But I have to wonder how Wells––and, really, the entirety of the internet––would react if Lucas actually stopped pumping the Star Wars vein and made something as small, personal and commercially obtuse as Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth. Old FFC certainly wasn’t given a pass just for going back to *his* indie roots.

As long as there’s still an apparently insatiable appetite for all things Star Wars (and if you’d seen the traffic metrics on this post, I don’t think you’d doubt that), and as long as Lucas is still getting off on the “engineering” aspect of pushing the brand through infinite extensions, what incentive does Lucas have to move on?

I can’t believe I’m defending George Lucas’ right to keep churning out Star Wars crap. Somebody get me a psych consult.

*This product, as far as we know, does not actually yet exist. But we’re sure, someday, it will!