Gary Kurtz - Chefelf.com Night Life

Feel like hating Lucas? Read this, it'll make it easier...

Gary Kurtz was a producer who worked alongside George Lucas on the first two Star Wars films, "A New Hope" and "The Empire Strikes Back." He is often credited with helping make the films the classics they are considered today. His absence was felt on the disappointing "Return of the Jedi," which didn't live up to its promise. Here are some interview snippets from Kurtz talking about his involvement with Star Wars.

ON RE-INSERTING THE "JABBA THE HUTT" SCENE IN EPISODE IV:
"Well, the original idea was that it was supposed to be there. It is in the script ... but it was a guy, a human being, this sort of fat guy... looked a bit like Sydney Greenstreet... and the scene is pretty much, I mean dialogue wise, it's exactly what you see in the Special Edition. But it was a person that was there, and we had technical difficulties with that scene. We shot it over three times for camera problems, focus problems, and film stock problem, and then abandoned it because we ran out of time."

"We just said, "Well, the bulk of the information that comes across in that scene, about Jabba threatening Han Solo and wanting his money and all of that, we could get across in the scene in the Cantina, with Greedo." It's basically the same kind of information. So we just added some bits to the Greedo scene to make it a little bit longer that gets across that information, and then jettisoned that other scene. This all happened while we were shooting. It wasn't done in the cutting room."

LUCAS ORIGINAL PLANS FOR A 9 EPISODE SAGA :
(as drafted in 1980).
EPISODE 1: Was to focus on the origins of the Jedi Knights and how they are initiated and trained
EPISODE 2: Introduction and development of Obi-Wan Kenobi
EPISODE 3: Introduction and life of Vader
EPISODE 4: There were seven different drafts of the film. At one point, they pursued buying the rights to Hidden Fortress because of the strong similarities. At one point, Luke was a female, Han was Luke's brother, Luke's father was the one in prison (interesting point for some debates) and the film featured 40 wookies
EPISODE 5: Once written, the screenplay of Empire is almost exactly what is seen on screen. The only cut scenes were those involving wampas in the rebel base (cut because of time and unsolved technical glitches) and about two minutes of Luke/Yoda Jedi training with no real dialog.
EPISODE 6: Leia was to be elected "Queen of her people" leaving her isolated. Han was to die. Luke confronted Vader and went on with his life alone. Leia was not to be Luke's sister.
EPISODE 7: Third trilogy was to focus on Luke's life as a Jedi, with very few details planned out. EPISODE 8: Luke's sister (not Leia) appears from another part of the galaxy.
EPISODE 9: First appearance of the Emperor.

"At that time, he always said that he had enough material for three earlier films and three later films, to make a total of nine, and there were outlined materials certainly for a later three that culminated with this big clash with the Emperor in Episode IX. So, we'll never see any of those, based on what he's said now."

"Well a lot of the prequel ideas were very, very vague. It's really difficult to say. I can't remember much about that at all, except dealing with the Clone Wars and the formation of the Jedi Knights in the first place – that was supposed to be one of the keys of Episode I, was going to be how the Jedi Knights came to be. But all of those notes were abandoned completely."

"One of the reasons Jedi came out the way it did was because the story outline of how Jedi was going to be seemed to get tossed out, and one of the reasons I was really unhappy was the fact that all of the carefully constructed story structure of characters and things that we did in Empire was going to carry over into Jedi. The resolution of that film was going to be quite bittersweet, with Han Solo being killed, and the princess having to take over as queen of what remained of her people, leaving everybody else. In effect, Luke was left on his own. None of that happened, of course."

"It would have been quite sad, and poignant and upbeat at the same time, because they would have won a battle. But the idea of another attack on another Death Star wasn't there at all ... it (Jedi) was a rehash of Star Wars, with better visual effects. And there were no Ewoks ... it was just entirely different. It was much more adult and straightforward, the story"

(original prequel vision) "Some of the treatments had references to that and episode one was going to be about the origin of the Jedi and the killing off of the Sith Lords and much more kind of archetypal, political aspects."

(original sequel vision) "Yes, it was very vague. It was Luke's journey really up to becoming sort of the premiere Jedi knight in the Obi-Wan Kenobi mold and his ultimate confrontation with the emperor. That was the outline of it and all that happens."

HIS VIEWS ON "RETURN OF THE JEDI" & "THE PHANTOM MENACE"
"There's a lot of undercurrent in Star Wars that, if you take it on the surface, a four-year-old can really enjoy it – but there's a lot else going on, under there. In that sense it's multi-layered, and Empire is as well. That's the thing that bothered me a bit about Jedi and certainly about Episode I, is that those layers, those subtexts – they're all gone. They're not there. You accept what's there on the screen – it either works for you as a surface adventure, or it doesn't. But that's all there is. There's nothing to ponder."

(More on "Jedi")
"The one story thread that got totally tossed out the window, which was really pretty important I think, was the one of Vader trying to convince Luke to join him to overthrow the Emperor. That together they had enough power that they could do that, and it wasn't him saying I want to take over the world and be the evil leader, it was that transition. It was Vader saying, "I'm looking again at what I've done and where my life has gone and who I've served and, very much in the Samurai tradition, and saying if I can join forces with my son, who is just as strong as I am, that maybe we can make some amends." So there was all of that going on in Jedi as well, that was supposed to go on."

"So the story was quite a bit more poignant and the ending was the coronation of Leia as the queen of what was left of her people, to take over the royal symbol. That meant she was then isolated from all of the rest and Luke went off then by himself. It was basically a kind of bittersweet ending. She's not his sister that dropped in to wrap up everything neatly. His sister was someone else way over on the other side of the galaxy and she wasn't going to show up until the next episode."

(More on "Phantom")
"There was an article in the Times about the racial and ethnic stereotypes. Of course Lucas Films official line is, "Well it's in another planet so it's just a race of creatures." But, you look at it and say, "Wait a minute, if the only context that we have is the Earth, so if you're going to do a race of primitive, tribal type people they're going to be equated with primitive, tribal type people, no matter what."

(on Anakin) "From a mythological point of view, I would have like to have seen him older. Because a 12 year-old is the one, that's when you come of age. The age when you leave home, it's the age when you're torn away from your mother metaphorically. I think that would have worked better for people."

"One of the story things that bothers me about it, is you don't have any sense of who the Jedi are. They're just referred to as these amazing characters. Ewan McGregor is supposed to be an apprentice so he's not even supposed to be as good as Liam Neeson, you don't see that either, you don't see any training. The biggest thing that bothers me about Phantom Menace as far as I'm concerned is the destruction of the spiritual center of the force, turning it into DNA and blood."

LUCAS AND "RETURN OF THE JEDI"
"So, on Jedi, he was determined to find a director who was easy to control, basically, and he did. And that was the result, basically – the film was sort of one that George might have directed if he had directed it himself... but maybe not, because it goes through so many interim bits, that if he had directed it probably would have been quite different."

LUCAS THE WRITER
"He seemed to work best as a collaborative writer, where other writers came in and had some say in adding certain things so you'd get a variety of point of view, like Willard and Gloria Huyck on American Graffiti. The Huycks also did a polished last draft on Star Wars to add some humor and some edginess to some certain bits, and I think it helped a lot. The other writers tended to add extra elements, especially emotional elements. George tends to write about the facts, in effect."

ON WHY HE PARTED WAYS WITH LUCAS IN 1981
"I think we both were frustrated and decided we just didn't want to work together anymore for the time being. One of the problems at that particular moment was it looked to me like Jedi was going to be disappointing – with the change in the story, with all of the story material that I had really resonated with being tossed out, and that whole Ewoks thing, and the new Death Star and the same kind of climax of Star Wars. It was, from a creative challenge point of view, kind of a rehash."

HIS OPINION ON EPISODE I:
"As I said, I knew what some of the history was about and what it could have been in terms of way back when we were talking about it, so in that sense just going to see the film and seeing the way it turned out was a disappointment because of my built-in connection to all of that past. But I think I'm objective enough to say that even given that parameter and given the script that they ended up with, I felt it was very, very weak. It isn't very dramatic and I was very bored in watching it. There were no surprises ... nothing that was unexpected, and there wasn't anything that I was looking forward to. I was quite disappointed, actually. I think for me, one of the problems with Episode I was that it didn't have any humor to speak of."

ON THE SPECIAL EDITION VERSIONS OF THE ORIGINAL FILMS:
"The problem with the Special Edition of the Star Wars films is that fixing a few matte lines and adding a couple of spaceships into shots is fine. I don't think anybody would notice that. But actually adding scenes that don't make any difference – they actually don't have any effect whatsoever on the film... and all of those digitally enhanced shots of robots floating around and creatures walking through the frame... call attention to themselves. Are much worse, actually, I think."

(On Greedo shooting first)
"Yeah, I really was livid about that one. I think it was a total – it ruins the scene, basically. The scene was never intended that way. Han Solo realized that Greedo was out to get him and he had to blast him first or he would lose his life. It shows you how much of a mercenary he is. That's what the point of the scene was. And so the way they've changed it around, it loses the whole impact of that whole aspect of it."

ON LUCAS TODAY:
"I think one of the problems that Lucas has now, in the Lucas Film empire, is the fact that he doesn't have more people around him who really challenge him. We had lots of arguments and discussions; heated discussions about the way things were going."

This was excellent, Acquaman. Thanks.

I agree with many of the points Kurtz made but have one central disagreement. I don't think the "Star Wars" concept could cover nine movies, let alone eleven (!) and in fact it was difficult to stretch it to three movies. We are not talking about Tolkein's Middle Earth here, a fully realized world whose history had already been fleshed out in unpublished archival texts when the The Lord of the Rings was being written. We are talking more Flash Gordon stuff, or at best the Foundation series, there are some interesting ideas there but its obvious the stuff is being made up as the story movies along.

So eventually the whole thing was going to peter out and for this reason I think Lucas was quite right to get everything wrapped up in ROTJ. It was also a major mistake to then go back and try to make three prequels.

And even in the context of Kurtz's series, you can't keep the Emperor hidden until the eleventh movie! With the buildup he got in ANH he had to be wheeled out sometime in the next two movies. I also have problems with Leia being "elected" (ugh!) Queen of a people we hadn't yet been introduced to.

However, I agree with all the comments on the prequels. I've given some thought for how I would have done them and it would have been similar:

EPISODE 1: Focusing on the origins of the Jedi Knights and how they are initiated and trained. I would add that no character should even here of "the Force" before Episode I. The movie would be the different ways characters react to the concept.

EPISODE 2: Introduction and development of Vader. All done in one movie. Not Obi Wan Kenobi (though he should be an important prequels character) because given how ANH turned out we need a Episode 3 to be about something else.

EPISODE 3: The consolidation of the empire and the beginning of the rebellion. The early life of Leia and why she joins the rebellion.

EPISODES 4-6 I'm assuming the orignal OT gets made.

EPISODES 7-9: If there has to be sequels, then Luke turns to the dark side and becomes the real founder of the Galactic Empire!

One intruiging idea Kurtz alludes to is not to have the Emperor in the prequels at all. The first time we see him is in Episode 6. He usurps the Republic and corrupts Vader offstage. However, in the prequels that were actually made, Darth Sideous is one of the few compelling characters.

As others have said, Lucas made two really big mistakes in the prequels, first by making all three movies about the early life of Vader, and second by making Vader into such a hopeless and unconvincing character.

This post has been edited by Casual Fan: 02 August 2005 - 09:03 AM