The difference being that George had full control of everything in the PT. Harrison ad libbed some lines, other people in the process had a say in the creative process, etc.
Why do you think that is? People adored him after the OT. And yes, he had quite a lot of control in the OT as well. A few ad-libbed lines nonetheless, Lucas also had near-absolute control of the OT. Other writers working with him wanted to kill characters like Yoda or Han, and Lucas put his foot down and said no. Lucas had the final word in the OT, and others who wanted to make story changes to it that Lucas didn't like had to sit there and take it.
Something like the Ewoks defeating the Empire had Lucas' fingerprints all over it, and as stupid as it was, it was what they went with, because it's what Lucas wanted. He wanted it to be his Vietcong allegory, nobody was able to stop him, even though the idea was completely bonkers and went against the themes of the first two films. Even back in the OT, people were backing down and letting Lucas have his cake and eat it too, even if the ideas were silly.
If Lucas didn't have full control of the OT, something as silly as the Ewoks defeating the Empire wouldn't have flown. They'd have said something like "George, we established the Empire as a grave threat in the first two movies. Having them lose to teddy bears with wooden sticks and stones is completely stupid." And they'd veto that idea and force him to go with the original idea of Wookiees. Except they'd probably give the Wookiees guns so that them defeating the Empire on the ground would be more plausible.
That isn't what happened. Lucas put in his silly teddy bears defeating the Empire because he badly wanted a Vietcong allegory. And it's what wound up on the screen. Not to mention that the Ewoks weren't a minor thing like Jar-Jar was; he was just a side comic character, the Ewoks tipped the balance of power to the good guys' favor in the final battle of the series. At least TPM was more realistic in that something as silly as Jar-Jar wound up being as useful as a screen door on a submarine when it came to an actual battle.
Lucas was putting silly shit in the movies long before the PT. If something like Jar-Jar surprised you, you weren't paying attention. The Ewoks were the Jar-Jar of the OT, except unlike the latter who was just a comic side character, the former is the reason the good guys even win.
It's something that even the Plinkett reviews acknowledge, in a way that probably flew over your head since it was done visually and didn't hold your hand in explaining things.
I remember him saying that, and I knew it was false, because Lucas had a near-absolute control over the OT as well, to the point where he'd veto ideas because he didn't feel like they'd work well.
And if Disney was chasing the money, there wouldn't be an entire cottage industry of hopeless retards like Jeremy Hambeast or Razorfist shitting themselves over every little decision. They just saw Star Wars as another Marvel property where they could crank out nonstop movies and audiences would gobble it up with little complaint because capeshit fatigue hadn't set in yet.
Disney and Lucas both chased money. Yet Lucas' Star Wars was able to chase it with less controversy because he appealed to the fans. Yes, even with the Prequels. Meanwhile, Disney appealed to people who bitched about Star Wars, not people who loved Star Wars. The end result being that their movie trilogy was a hollow facsimile of the OT, as opposed to something like the PT which had things like Yoda fighting the Emperor, which the fans desperately wanted.
Like I said before, I will never forgive RLM because their bitching led the Star Wars franchise to its current, sorry state. It was their fans' constant bitching that got Lucas to sell. It was their recommendation of JJ Abrams and copying the OT that Disney followed. And that led to disaster, since Disney based their Sequel Trilogy, which was the bedrock of their new SW franchise, on RLM's suggestions. And what we got was mystery boxes and bullshit. Even if you removed TLJ and ROS as factors, TFA practically undid everything that was done in the OT for the sake of blind nostalgia. They reduced the Original Trilogy to the same status as Naruto anime filler by undoing the heroes' accomplishments offscreen.
Ironically, thanks to RLM suggesting JJ Abrams do something similar to the OT, they've made it so the Prequels are the only films that matter, since the Jedi and the Republic stay dead. RLM suggested JJ Abrams. JJ Abrams wiped out the accomplishments of the OT heroes to make things more like the way they were when the OT started. Any fan of the OT should be mad at that outrage, and that outrage's source is RLM, and their idiotic suggestions.
