CT Lucas' Vision for ROTJ or the original concepts w/ Kurtz?

So the original concepts for Return of the Jedi were different.

The highlights of Kurtz's version:

• Leia is not Luke's sister
• Boba Fett was supposed to be the main villain (or one of the main villains) of the movie
• No Death Star II
• The ewoks were creepy lizard like creatures called ewaks.
• Han Solo dies in the middle of the movie during a raid on an imperial base
• Leia becomes a queen
• Luke rides off into the sunset (goes off alone) at the end

References:

http://www.indiewire.com/2013/05/5-...edi-how-it-could-have-been-much-cooler-97612/
http://www.nme.com/news/film/original-plot-for-boba-fett-s-role-in-star-wars-re-869564
http://filmthreat.com/interviews/gary-kurtz-interview-the-original-star-wars-producer-speaks/

Which version would you have preferred?

 

I'm happy with the version we saw (Except for pacing in the first half). Therefore, I've no desire to envision greener grass, which is almost always possible with unfilmed alternate material of varying quality if one so wishes.

 

I think losing Kurtz was a huge loss and with the ROTJ we have it seems like there is a disconnect between ESB and ROTJ. I also think losing Kurtz affected the prequel trilogy and even the sequel trilogy in a very negative way.

I would have loved to see what could have been if Kurtz would have stayed on board.

 

Kurtz is a hack honestly.
Han dying would have been absolutely bad.

 

It seems like Harrison Ford like Kurtz's vision better and wanted Han killed off in ROTJ.

And really? A hack? Kurtz was a producer for the 2 best SW movies in the saga.

 

Did Harrison Ford create SW?
And ESB is very overrated.
ANH and RotS are by far the best.

 

Ford wanted out because he felt that Han served no purpose after ANH. He had to be talked into appearing in TESB and Lucas even prepared SOTME as a sequel without Han, if ANH didn't do well enough to afford to bringing him back.

Who let the budget on both films get out of control and who had to be bailed out by Lucas twice after he was fired, for the same reasons. And who Jim Henson was about to throttle because of his conduct during the making of "The Dark Crystal", was too much for him.

 

Any projects that Kurtz did without Lucas are irrelevant.

The team of Lucas and Kurtz produced the best Star Wars movies in my opinion.

As for ANH and RotS being the best... While I do like them as top 3 SW movies Empire is clearly a cut above IMO. I'll defer to my post here for further explanation:
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...idered-the-best.50039223/page-8#post-54464545

 

Read a little and stopped. RotS has better music placement.
John Williams was in his prime in the early 2000's. Prisoner of Azkaban might be his bes score.

 

Woah...I don't know if you realize what songs originated in TESB.











Full list: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnpIGDCblPQVDMFOKZJXh1isgMLNVihMy

 

I said "placement", friend.

 

They're proof that he wasn't as good as many believe.

Duly noted, but still an opinion.

 

My favorite music placement in the saga...the part where the tie fighters hit the asteroids (around 2:13)...amazing!

 

Not sure what your point is. I could give you a stand out moment from RotS I guess.
Obi thrusting at Grevious on cue with the music at the start of their Utapau fight is sublime.

 

I'll have to check that scene again.

That said we went off the rails of the topic. I think the storytelling overall was much stronger with the team of Lucas and Kurtz. I think the original ideas for ROTJ were better with Kurtz still on board. Most importantly, Luke and Leia weren't siblings, no Death Star II, more Boba Fett, and the Ewoks (actually called ewaks) were lizard like almost scary looking creatures not teddy bears. I would have loved that.

 

I don't know all the details of the original version.
But I like some of the ideas:
No Death Star.
Different Ewoks.
Luke and Leia unrelated.

Would have liked it if Vader lived though, which is in neither version.

 

Most of these changes are on the idea that we'd go right into Episode 7 a few years later (or ever). Lucas (at the time) decided he wasn't up for that, so he shortened that arc. Trying to fit in the search for a sister in RotJ would have been muddy, underdeveloped and unrewarding. The bonus is that when we see Kylo Ren, he isn't the son of Luke's sister that we never met before, but the sister we already knew through 3.01 episodes (RotS hardly counts).

Same as before. Main villain of the first half of RotJ we got would not have been bad. Jabba being the puppeteer, but Boba being the guy stopping all their Han escape plans (until he couldn't stop them any more).

Well, from what I've hear about original plans, DS 1 would not have happened and DS 2 in RotJ would have been DS only. The OMG we can't beat that weapon for the first trilogy finale. Having said that, it would have been nice to have something other than DS2, but it really doesn't bother me that much. It is more like the move from atomic to thermonuclear. Very similar visual, but one is bigger as gen 2. Not that bad for a difference of about 3 to 4 years.

I'd like that more as an adult, but as a tiny kid, I liked the Ewoks just fine. Something overlooked is that the Ewoks "appearing" non-threatening to the Empire might be why they just had "one legion" of troops instead of *multiple legions* if they saw scary lizard people. Caught them off balance, as Palps would say.

Seems kind of pointless. At least TFA allowed Han to be the hesitant OB1. Better death than just some raid. I posted elsewhere that an RotJ Han death by Boba right at the moment of triumph in escape from Tatooine would be a great way to allow Luke to lose it a bit and really make the viewer thing he's gone dark with no return. Luke slaughters the Sand People Boba and Jabba.

*Princess* Leia is probably my least favorite part of her character. I'm glad they downplayed it after ANH. Making her ascend to Queen would have been making something I didn't like to begin with worse. I dislike the "She's always been royalty to me" line in TFA as well.

I don't hate it, but it seems to diminish what he helped Anakin accomplish. The bittersweet joy that when every one else (including OB1 and Yoda) told him his father was a lost cause, he was right in the end. And what a great thing to be right about.

Now you did put influence as opposed to Kurtz's vision. So I'd probably pick that one, although what the end result would be is actually still up in the air as a collaboration has infinite possibilities. Kurtz most likely could have been just one more well of ideas and having too many ideas for fiction is rarely a bad thing. A hack's ideas are probably bad, but I don't deal in absolutes. Kurtz doesn't have to be a hack for Lucas to be a genius or vice versa. Most people have something to bring to the table. The hard part is being the person that has to make the final decision and dealing with the consequences.

 

To be fair, the original plan was to just raid Had Abadon and destroy the Executor. The thing was Lucas didn't want to blow up a planet to state that the Empire was destroyed and the Executor's destruction wasn't as satisfying.

Even Ford agreed that it was a better idea to have Han die this way, than being frozen or in a raid.

 

Han dying in the third film was one of the things planned out early in the writing of ESB, around the time of the Leigh Brackett draft: well before Lucas & Kasdan decided to have him frozen at the end of the film and leave his fate up in the air.

Though you could still have Han die "in a raid on an Imperial base" and make a satisfactory ending from it: say he dies taking out the shields that protect the Imperial Center on Coruscant, kind of like the ending in Rogue One. A heroic sacrifice that doesn't diminish the importance of his rescue or give him a meaningless Tasha Yar death.

 

I opted for the Lucas version, because I like ROTJ despite it's flaws, and can't really compare it to an outline of a movie and a collaboration that didn't exist. ROTJ is the only OT entry that sort of feels like a pretty generic blockbuster to me, a string of great set pieces held together by a fairly thin story. ROTJ was content with wrapping up story lines from previous entries, while creating very little of it's own. This is why IMO Luke and Vader are the only characters with a strong arc, while the others are just going through the motions. In my view it's still a good and very entertaining film, just not very inspired.

 

I agree with most of this. ROTJ just seems to be wrapping up the trilogy in a blockbuster type of way. Ie...I think it's the first movie that cashes in on Star Wars nostalgia. A trend that continues in later movies with TFA being arguably the worst offender. To me ROTJ is the first Star Wars movie where a compelling story didn't come first.

 

Boba Fett as a big deal sounds pretty stupid (he should be pretty overshadowed by someone like his employer Jabba and then pretty quickly defeated) and Han dying (right after he already sacrificed himself/nearly died) and Luke ending up alone (with Leia a queen to refugees) like forced dark for the sake of dark, trying too hard to duplicate TESB.

I thought the main element was that Vader wouldn't have been redeemed, Luke would have either failed or not tried to do that, instead Luke would have just defeated and killed him and then spent the next episodes looking for his lost sister and then fighting the Emperor. Four whole episodes of dragging out the final showdown with the Emperor would have felt underwhelming after how consequential the first two films were.

 

My understanding of the original outline still has the Vader redemption + Emperor confrontation.

But instead of it happening on Death Star II it happens in some hellish looking place (I think underground on a planet). Original concept art:

 

it was the lowest level of the city planet

 

I would agree with DrDre, I it hard if not impossible to compare a finished film with a set of notes.
So I would take the RotJ we have.

RE: Kurtz and budget.
Given how much both ANH and ESB had to make from scratch and the terrible location shooting both films had, it is not strange that they went over budget.
But from what I've read, RotJ also had budget over runs. It had to make 115 M to be in the black, while ESB had to make between 50-60 M.
So RotJ had a much higher barrier to pass to turn profit and yet the first two films were mishandled budget wise?

With ESB, Lucas did get concerned about the budget, which is fair, it was his money.
And he told Kurtz to get a handle on it.
But Kurtz could also see what Kershner was doing and what he had to deal with.
He was stuck between doing what his employer wanted and supporting the director.
And he choose the latter, he supported Kershner's vision of the film.

But I don't think Kurtz departing had as much an effect on RotJ as, a seemingly, minor thing.
Not putting Kershner's name at the start of ESB.
The DGA had requested this but Lucas wanted the films to be consistent.

So the DGA tried to fine him but couldn't since the film was mostly filmed overseas.
So instead they fined Kershner. Lucas got annoyed, paid the fine, and then quit the DGA.
He had no patience for people telling him what he could not do.

Why did this matter?
For RotJ Lucas had originally wanted Spielberg. The making of Raiders had been a much better experience for Lucas than the two SW films to date.
He wasn't stressed out or working himself into a hospital.
So he planned to have Spielberg direct and he could leave a lot of it in the capable hands of his friend.
And he could take a step back and patch things up with Marcia.
The DGA thing messed that up.
Now he had to either use a non-US director or some new, up and coming director that had not joined the DGA.
So Lucas had to go with Marquand, who was British.
But he had mostly directed documentaries and was a bit lost with all the special effects demands.
So Lucas had to a lot more with RotJ, the opposite of what he wanted.
Plus he was getting burned out with SW and wanted to wrap up the ST plot threads quickly.

Bye for now
Blackboard Monitor