He also takes no chances. Imagine what a kick it would have been for Lucas to hint at Anakin's deep rooted evil. As for Lucas' directing, he just seems rusty. The film is distracting, scenes seem to go on and on and then lead nowhere, the actors' seem to be a tad confused - they seem not to have been given proper direction as to how to stand and where to move when they're talking to invisible creatures. Still, it's surprising that they lack such flamboyance.
Nobody does anything too memorable here - they all seem so boxed in.
But a lot of big budget movies deliver impressive visual landscapes while providing a shabby story. He's a filmmaker who creates similar movies with flair and adrenaline. Lucas hasn't directed anything else in over 22 years and it shows. Supposedly, he'll follow the pattern he partook in during the making of the first three films, by handing over the writing and directing chores to other filmmakers. Lucas is a conceptualist, the idea man - but someone else should get the specifics down.