Saga Irvin Kershner Says Nice Things About George Lucas

From the ESB 30th Anniversary screening:

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/10/irvin-kershner

I'm posting this 'cause people love to cherry-pick comments from everyone/anyone who worked on the OT that seem to criticize Lucas.

"George was the best producer I ever worked with."
~ Irvin Kershner.

 

Irvin was always extremely vocal in his support for George Lucas. It was a bond that went a long way.

Of course George was very protetive of his director when they ran into trouble with the Screen Actors Guild over the ESB, paying his fines, etc... And Irvin was very appreciative that George allowed him ownership of the movie. He didn't upstage him at the world premiers and in fact insisted Kershner took the limelight when the film was unveiled.

Its a shame Lucas and Kurtz couldn't have remained as friendly as Lucas and Kersh did, but I suppose the differance is that Kersh walked away on his own terms and on good terms with Lucas, where-as Kurtz's association with Lucas ended much more painfully for both of them.

 

Kersh even thought the SE was an improvement over the theatrical cut. Mentioned on either the DVD commentary or the Blu-Ray archival commentary.

 

Yup. I even remember Kersh saying something like that at Celebration IV.

 

Obviously Lucasfilm bribed him to say those nice things.

Did anyone here run into people using Kershner's death as an opportunity trash Lucas? I saw that in most of the discussions of his death I read online. It was incredibly, mind-blowingly disgusting and pathetic.

 

I for one never used Kershner's death to critisise Lucas. It was a sad occasion that I would never have used to bash on someone.

And from what I understand Kershner never had a problem with Lucas. He may have been critical of some of Lucas' work and would have said how he would have done things differently (His rather vocal opinion on prequel Yoda leaps to mind here.) but I don't think he ever actively set out to trash Lucas. If he didn't like something he brought it up in a classy way, something a lot of people can aspire to.

And as the link proves he has very nice things to say about the man himself.

 

what did he say about PT yoda?

 

An even dumber misconception is the belief that Kershner "banned Lucas from the set" of The Empire Strikes Back. You guys ever hear that gem? That one's so goofy it defies belief.

BTW, in light of the various comments by Kershner alluded to in this thread, why is Kershner described as having heroically "stole the movie away from Lucas" (sic) in The Secret History of Star Wars?

 

I remember in "Empire of Dreams" Kershner said Lucas wanted him to go to the premiere instead of Lucas going. He said to Kershner "Its your movie."

I think that says it all. I see no reason to believer Kershner would blatantly lie to cameras.

 

Because those critical of Lucas feel that the movie was better once Kershner made the changes in the script during and after filming and that it is less Lucas and more Kershner is a positive.

 

My appraisal of Kershner: A gracious, good-humored man who crafted one masterpiece (TESB), a handful of fairly absorbing character studies, several entirely forgettable character studies, and two turgid genre entries infinitely worse than Lucas's most incompetently-staged scene in Attack of the Clones.

 

He liked some of the changes such as the added scenes of cloud city but he did not care for things such as adding a shots to the wampacave scene.

 

Kershner said he had some of the best months of his life filming TESB. And who can blame him? After working with those actors and that story, he must have been grateful to Lucas for making it all possible.

I can see why he would not care for them adding shots to the wampa cave. It removes the mystery.

Irvin Kershner is very entertaining to listen to when one puts in the TESB DVD or Blu-Ray. His imitation of Darth Vader is classic. He recorded all his lines to give James Earl Jones some inspiration. Must have been entertaining. I wish we could hear this take on Yoda. Lol. He had some good quotes, including this one: "There's nothing more interesting than the landscape of the human face."

 

Weird, I remember Kersh saying something like "That's the way I wish I would have done it!" on showing the wampa.

 

I'd say it would be unlikely that Kersh would have moaned about the SE changes. He and George went back a long way, George gave him the opportunity for his best film making experience and, what's more, he seemed like a real pro and a gent.

 

According to Roger Ebert, Ingmar Bergman once told him, "The human face is the great subject of cinema. Everything is there."

Kershner does seem to been a pretty decent person.

 

That would make sense, considering that they arrived at the original, "mysterious", cut due to technical difficulties/monetary issues. Wampas were easier for them to get right in the nineties than in 1979.

 

Some things really are easier to achieve with CGI--like convincing monsters that don't look revealingly like a man in a fur suit.

 

Which one is that?

 

He actually spoke positively about that change in the audiocomentary.

 

You mean Chewbacca?

 

@L110 please try to avoid the multiple posts.

 

Ah, but Chewbacca is a friendly monster, so the man-in-suit approach subliminally reinforces him as a "good guy" to the audience.

Whereas a CGI Wampa, meant to be a mindless scary creature, doesn't have to worry about that issue. In fact, the Uncanny Valley effect may be actually a net benefit in his case.

In fact, though, IIRC the 1997 footage of the Wampa used a man-in-suit costume as well. It just benefited from a much bigger budget and newer, more flexible materials used to make the costume. This is probably why overall I find it the least bad change to the ESB SE; its only real issue in my view is that it wasn't in the original theatrical cut of the film.