He's human.
In interviews, it seems to me he cared about tons of other shit than Star Wars. It was the fans that made the sci fi epic what it is, not the sole direction of Lucas.
Lets not forget Francis Ford Coppola picked this guy out of hundreds of candidates to intern for him and found American Zoetrope and Lucasfilm subsequently after. American Graffiti is what he loved. He cared more about hot rods and that idea of Americana, not a space opera. I'm still wholly convinced Gary Kurtz made the first trilogy what it was.
Kurtz helped, but probably the largest influence was Marcia Lucas, who edited all three of the original films and by all accounts was one of the most gifted editors in the history of the medium. She's the one who found the movie that we know inside the reputedly terrible first cut of Star Wars. Some say Coppola wouldn't lock a picture until she had seen it and given feedback. Stories are told of her making key changes to The Godfather Part II, Jaws, Close Encounters and E.T. that no one else saw before she pointed out what to do. During the making of the original Star Wars, Lucas wouldn't listen to dissenting opinions, so people with problems would tell Marcia, and if she agreed it was a real problem, she'd argue with George until he gave in and made the change or adjustment; she was the only one who could pull this off, by Gary Kurtz's account. After she was out of the picture, a notable decline can be seen in Lucas and Spielberg's pictures that lasts several years.
Is it true she has like completely disappeared? Like no one has heard from her in years?
She left him for the guy who installed the stained glass at Skywalker Ranch (which one presumes was removed and replaced afterward). As the story goes according to acquaintances, George was devastated and basically told their friends to choose one of them, because he wasn't going to deal with it. Most people picked the then-most-powerful man in film. Marcia dropped out of the business and raised her kids with her new husband.
She has given exactly one interview that I know of since then, which is printed in
The Secret History of Star Wars, on the condition that the author not reveal where she is or any other information about her. One of the great tragedies of that era of cinema is the loss of Marcia Lucas. A full 40-50 years of Marcia Lucas being a working editor in film would have in all likelihood resulted in a different industry. Many who knew her when she was editing refer to her as a genius in the medium, and when you watch Star Wars, it's hard to disagree.
I highly recommend The Secret History of Star Wars, by the way, as it contains interviews with many of the people who made the original trilogy what it was, including Kurtz and Lawrence Kasdan. Kasdan tells a great story about hand-delivering his first draft of Raiders of the Lost Ark to Lucas, and Lucas takes it and comments that Leigh Brackett has passed away and he desperately needs someone to write the final draft of Empire Strikes Back. Kasdan is thrilled but does feel the need to point out that Lucas hasn't even read the Raiders script yet, so what if he hates it and thinks Kasdan is terrible? Lucas thinks for a moment, and says, "Go back to LA and start writing. I'll read this tonight and if I hate it I'll call you tomorrow and tell you to stop." Lucas never called, so Kasdan wrote the final draft of Empire.
