Okay, so what do you think NOW?

[Sauron the White]

from Aiwendil

Sure, Lucas has been consistently (and pointedly) ignored by the Academy - which puts him in the good company of, to name a few, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, and Stanley Kubrick. In my opinion, that's a far more impressive list of names than the list of 'Best Director' recipients.

I would consider Lucas to be a good borrower from others and a good world builder and creator. Directing has never been his strong suit. He know virtually nothing about directing real people with real feelings and actual human emotion. Zilch - nada - zip - nothing. He directs comic book characters.

As the team of Lucas, Hitchcock, Welles and Kubrick - I will take the team of actual Oscar winners as follows (just to name a few)
Woody Allen
Frank Capra
Francis Ford Coppola
George Cukor
Clint Eastwood
Victor Felming
John Ford
John Huston
David Lean
Sydney Pollack
Martin Scorsese
Steven Spielberg
George Stevens
Billy Wilder
William Wyler

Peter Jackson is in very good company indeed. In fact, if I had to come up just four to go up against the four you named I would take Capra, Ford, Lean and Wyler and feel very confindent that I have the four greatest directors of all time. George Lucas could not have manned the cue cards for them.