Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have one of the most noted friendships in Hollywood. They combined to help create the modern notion of the summer blockbuster -- Spielberg with Jaws in 1975 and Lucas two years later with Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope -- and helped nourish it with a string of high-profile hits in the 1980s. They most famously collaborated on the Indiana Jones films, with Lucas producing and receiving story credit while Spielberg directed the first four films in the franchise. It's perhaps no surprise then that rumors endure about Spielberg coming close to directing a Star Wars movie himself, specifically Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi.

It didn't happen, and Spielberg's direct contributions to Star Wars have been minimal. But the way the stories persist speaks volumes about how the two men's legacies have been intertwined. And that's mostly because the thought of Spielberg helming one of Lucas' space operas -- a seminal chapter, no less -- is enough to get fans actively wondering what could've been.

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Return of the Jedi

Lucas famously declined to direct the first two sequels in his sci-fi saga, turning the reins over to Irvin Kershner for Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back and Richard Marquand for Return of the Jedi. That left him free to produce the films, which let him oversee their entirety and shape his galaxy far, far away to his liking. While he returned to direct the Prequel Trilogy, they were essentially his only subsequent efforts behind the camera. He directed only six films in his career, four of which were Star Wars movies, and the other two -- 1971’s THX 1138 and 1973’s American Graffiti -- came out well before his signature science fiction saga.

Spielberg, on the other hand, is known primarily as a director, with over 50 credits to his resume, including last year's award-winning remake of West Side Story, and a pair of Best Director Oscars. That dovetailed nicely into their first and greatest formal collaboration: 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, which not only created the character of Indiana Jones but also resulted in a franchise that looked as if it might rival Star Wars for a time. With Lucas producing and Spielberg directing, their creative similarities came into perfect sync. Spielberg had another hit -- erasing the failure of his previous flop, 1941, and setting the stage for the triumph of E.T. the next year -- while Lucas delivered a creative property that wasn't Star Wars to burnish his credentials.

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Return of the Jedi would have been an ideal project to continue that collaboration. The culmination of the core trilogy was intended as a final triumph of good over evil, pushing back against the darkness of The Empire Strikes Back and bringing peace and closure to the galaxy at last. That's fertile ground for Spielberg, whose films typically embrace human decency and happy endings. Jedi also centers on reconciliation with a flawed father figure -- another theme that Spielberg repeatedly explored in his work. Combine that with his ease around big-budget special effects and a way of always finding the characters amid the spectacle, and there may not have been a better director alive for the project.

The reasons why it didn't happen are tied into the rumors themselves, which have never been verified and remain in the realm of conjecture. It is known that Lucas considered a number of prominent directors for the job, including David Lynch and David Cronenberg, before settling on Marquand. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that Spielberg -- his close friend with whom he shared a freshly minted classic in Raiders -- would have been on that list, too. Hollywood policy got in the way, however, at least according to the stories. Lucas broke with the Director's Guild of America during the production of Empire, supposedly because they wanted him to include opening credits in the film instead of the franchise's now-iconic word crawl. That, too, is difficult to verify, but regardless of the reasons, Lucas left the guild, and Spielberg, who remained a DGA member, would not have been able to direct the film under those circumstances.

Whether it's true or not is almost beside the point. Return of the Jedi became a classic in its own right under Marquand, and with the second formal Lucas/Spielberg collaboration resulting in the extremely problematic Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the Star Wars sequel wouldn't necessarily have done any better with the two-time Oscar winner in charge. But the fact that Spielberg and Lucas are so closely connected -- combined with the fact that the former never directed anything for a franchise he was probably made for -- makes it still feel like a lost opportunity. That may be what keeps the rumors swirling after all these years, but with Star Wars still as relevant as ever, Lucas' close friend may yet get a chance to take a crack at it.

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