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Star Wars mastermind George Lucas turns a storied 65 years old Thursday. And while we would make him a Death Star birthday cake and deliver it to Skywalker Ranch if we could, we’re pretty certain we wouldn’t make it past security.

Instead, we take a look at the five most fantastic things Lucas has ever made and revisit five fumbles he probably could’ve handled better. Hey, even the master would probably like another shot at Howard the Duck.

The Fantastic Five

THX-1138

It’s arguable that Lucas’ first feature film, based on his prize-winning University of Southern California student film of roughly the same name, is his best.

THX-1138 is post-war 1984 fed through Mean Streets, with a bit of Brave New World, The Prisoner and Prozac thrown in for good measure. There are no Ewoks in this movie: It delivers the panoptic purism of Star Wars, sans sweetener.

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Lucasfilm

Quick, pick another major or indie studio created in the last 30 years named for its creator? Now name one as successful as Lucasfilm.

After the Hollywood big shots passed on Star Wars, Lucas waived his up-front director’s fee for a percentage of the box-office and all the merchandising. It turned out well, freeing him up to play on his own chessboard and move units and minds in the process. From Skywalker Ranch and Industrial Light and Magic to THX and Pixar, Lucas has changed the industry from the outside, by rules of his own making. With a creative sandbox the size of the Death Star, he could probably make any film he has ever wanted to make.

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Raiders of the Lost Ark

Re-creating the adventure serials of his youth, Lucas wrote and executive-produced this action smash hit, which was directed by his USC pal Steven Spielberg, instantly giving him a second franchise gold mine before his 40th birthday. Not bad work if you can get it.

Those who were there when it exploded across screens remember that, like Star Wars before it, Raiders of the Lost Ark redefined kinetic cinema. And while its later copies, especially Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, failed to achieve its sublimity, Raiders, like Lucas himself, ages like fine wine.

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Star Wars: A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Revenge of the Sith

There’s no point singling out any one installment of Star Wars as the best. Every one meant something different to everyone. But if you grew up in the ’70s, it’s likely that you define life as before and after A New Hope. A cultural time bomb, it touched everything from technology and entertainment to politics.

The Empire Strikes Back is probably the better film, an icy breath-taker that clings to your heart and mind harder than its more optimistic forebear. Both films were certainly better than Revenge of the Sith, which might not have ended up on this side of the Lucas list at all, if you polled Star Wars fandom.

But the last installment of the prequel trilogy, a feverish storm of data, effects and dystopia wrapped in some of the greatest action Lucas has ever committed to film, was a crushing winner. Fandom can hate all it wants, but Revenge of the Sith gets far closer to the original Star Wars velocity than any of the prequels. And close to A New Hope is a nice place to be.

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Star Wars: Clone Wars

One reason Revenge of the Sith rocked nicely was this 2003 miniseries, helmed by Samurai Jack guru Gennady Tartakovksy, which knitted the prequel trilogy’s last film with its not-great predecessor, Attack of the Clones. Although Clone Wars‘ 2-D animation pales in comparison to the also-great 2008 CGI version, currently slaying the ratings on Cartoon Network, its action was just as potent and its stories just as deep, dark and metaphysical as Empire Strikes Back and THX-1138. If nothing else, Anakin’s spirit-walk and rage rampage on Nelvaan should have won an Emmy.

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The Fumbling Five

Howard the Duck

Marvel Comics’ first film adaptation is also its worst film adaptation. Howard the Duck is a stinker nearly beyond compare, but, hey, no one hits a homer every time at the plate. Probably the toughest pill to swallow is that its losses put Lucas in a precarious financial position, allowing his friend, Apple brainiac Steve Jobs, to acquire what would become Pixar for a song.

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Star Wars: Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
Return of the Jedi

The lesser Star Wars films would probably rank among sci-fi’s finest if they didn’t have to stand in the shadow of the greater Star Wars films, which changed the world, no hyperbole intended.

Jar Jar Binks marred the otherwise compelling Phantom Menace, Anakin and Padme’s nauseating courtship knocked Attack of the Clones off its cool CGI crutches, and Return of the Jedi’s thrilling closure was raided by a bunch of furry nightmares called Ewoks. No one is perfect, not even Lucas.

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

This wobbly return to a stable franchise was marred by more than a few savageries. From Shia LeBeouf channeling Brando’s Johnny Strabler to a geriatric Indy surviving a nuclear blast in a careening refrigerator, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull could have used a little more Kiss Me Deadly and a little less That Thing You Do.

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Captain EO

Michael Jackson, Disney and kids. Any questions? If the answer is yes, send them to Disney, which has stopped showing Captain EO in its theme parks even though other potentially controversial attractions like The Jungle Cruise, featuring bug-eyed African savages dangling totems laced with shrunken heads, still pack ‘em in. Too bad, as the short Captain EO movie, which Lucas executive-produced, featured some rather kick-ass 3-D action and animation, even by today’s standards. But Jackson is just too big a gamble, what with all the … well, you know.

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Willow vs. Labyrinth

Time heals most wounds, mostly because it makes people older. By the time the next generation comes in, everything old is new and what were once stinkers are now cult classics. This pattern of reappraisal has even touched Howard the Duck