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Interview with Gary Kurtz
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| Jace_Varitek | Date: Saturday, 02 Jun 2012, 5:48 PM | Message # 1 |
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| I found an interview from a couple years ago with Gary Kurtz, producer and part-time director of The Empire Strikes Back, in which he says what we already know about the Lucas empire, but also describes some of the original ideas for the Trilogy that George ended up changing. I found it interesting. Here's some excerpts.
"I could see where things were headed," Kurtz said. "The toy business began to drive the [Lucasfilm] empire. It's a shame. They make three times as much on toys as they do on films. It's natural to make decisions that protect the toy business but that's not the best thing for making quality films."
He added: "The first film and 'Empire' were about story and character but I could see that George's priorities were changing."
* * *
"The emphasis on the toys, it's like the cart driving the horse," Kurtz said. "If it wasn't for that the films would be done for their own merits. The creative team wouldn't be looking over their shoulder all the time."
* * *
For Kurtz, the popular notion that "Star Wars" was always planned as a multi-film epic is laughable. He says that he and Lucas, both USC film school grads who met through mutual friend Francis Ford Coppola in the late 1960s, first sought to do a simple adaptation of "Flash Gordon," the comic-strip hero who had been featured in movie serials that both filmmakers found charming.
* * *
"Star Wars" opened with a title sequence that announced it as "Episode IV" as a winking nod to the old serials, not to announce a film franchise underway, Kurtz said.
* * *
After the release of "Empire" (which was shaped by material left over from that first Lucas treatment), talk turned to a third film and after a decade and a half the partners could no longer find a middle ground.
"We had an outline and George changed everything in it, "Kurtz said. "Instead of bittersweet and poignant he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. The original idea was that they would recover [the kidnapped] Han Solo in the early part of story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base. George then decided he didn't want any of the principals killed. By that time there were really big toy sales and that was a reason."
The discussed ending of the film that Kurtz favored presented the rebel forces in tatters, Leia grappling with her new duties as queen and Luke walking off alone "like Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti westerns," as Kurtz put it.
Kurtz said that ending would have been a more emotionally nuanced finale to an epic adventure than the forest celebration of the Ewoks that essentially ended the trilogy with a teddy-bear luau.
He was especially disdainful of the Lucas idea of a second Death Star, which he felt would be too derivative of the 1977 film. "So we agreed that I should probably leave."
Jace Varitek
Manager/Administrator from January 2003 to Present
My recent posts here, pre-2009 archives here
"When my information changes, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"
—John Maynard Keynes
Furthermore, a dancing Wookiee:
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| Karth_DeQora | Date: Saturday, 02 Jun 2012, 8:06 PM | Message # 2 |
 Colonel general
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| Wait...
George Lucas puts money ahead of artistic integrity?
HOLY SHIT!
Man, Myth, Administrative God. Also plays a mean kazoo.
Jace Varitek: In Northern California we just have gangs of vigilante interior decorators.
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| Valin_Rall | Date: Saturday, 02 Jun 2012, 8:56 PM | Message # 3 |
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| There's a movie out there titled "The People vs George Lucas" found while skimming through Netflix a week or so ago. Very good documentary that also points out that while he lead the charge to preserve classic films and prevent the colorization of black and white films, he's turned around and made so many edits to the original Star Wars, that he even ordered all of the original VHS of Star Wars to be destroyed, so there would only be the reedited versions of it out there.
Luckly I've still got the Three Original movies on VHS 
Lord Rall of Queyta
Lord of Winter and Hero of Rhen Var
Knight-General of Drongar
Destroyer of Worlds
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| Jace_Varitek | Date: Saturday, 02 Jun 2012, 9:20 PM | Message # 4 |
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| Here's a schizophrenic quote from him on that subject:
"On the one hand, I'm doing this, while on the other hand I'm on the Artists Rights Board, a foundation that's trying to protect films from being changed—which I feel very strongly about, because with the technology we have today, anybody can go back and do this kind of thing. I can sort of see the future, and I want to protect films as they are and as they should be. I don't want to see them colorized, I don't want to see their formats changed, I don't want to see them re-edited, and I don't want to see what I'm able to do now, which is add more characters and do all kinds of things that nobody even contemplated before."
(emphasis mine. It's classic "do as I say, not as I do").
Jace Varitek
Manager/Administrator from January 2003 to Present
My recent posts here, pre-2009 archives here
"When my information changes, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"
—John Maynard Keynes
Furthermore, a dancing Wookiee:
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| Janar_Cerra | Date: Sunday, 03 Jun 2012, 4:55 AM | Message # 5 |
 Major general
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| Han Solo was gonna die?! Glad that change was made.
Ja'nar Cerra
Queen of Garos IV
Acting Senator to the Republic, Garos IV
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| Jace_Varitek | Date: Sunday, 03 Jun 2012, 10:16 AM | Message # 6 |
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Generalissimo
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| I'm not sure how I feel about that, even though it's probably a better fate than he has in the Expanded Universe—emasculated to the point he himself admits he is, a neglectful and occasionally hard-drinking father who goes to desperate, death-defying lengths to re-live his glory days until Chewbacca's death reminds him of his mortality and of the death of his younger self and he flies into a depression. Everyone including his wife consider him a bumbler, forever suspected of being a criminal, and try to keep him out of sight. And he lives long enough to see his children either disappoint him or die. I bet Han Solo himself would prefer Kurtz's version. I know Harrison Ford did. Especially if they'd kept him as the scoundrel who "shoots first," sacrificing himself would be his moment of redemption. Giving his life for something bigger than himself, etc.
Jace Varitek
Manager/Administrator from January 2003 to Present
My recent posts here, pre-2009 archives here
"When my information changes, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"
—John Maynard Keynes
Furthermore, a dancing Wookiee:
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| Jace_Varitek | Date: Sunday, 03 Jun 2012, 12:08 PM | Message # 7 |
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Generalissimo
Group: Administrators
Messages: 2245
Status: Offline
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Jace Varitek
Manager/Administrator from January 2003 to Present
My recent posts here, pre-2009 archives here
"When my information changes, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"
—John Maynard Keynes
Furthermore, a dancing Wookiee:
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