Why didn't Ivan Kershner or George Lucas direct return of the Jedi?

Just a quick question; we know George had a terrible time making Episode 4 and he was obviously busy setting things up for his future so he chose not to direct the empire stikes back.

But why didn't he or Kershner direct EP5?

I remember reading once (i think it was the making of EP1 book) that George said he had to be on set so often during the making of ROTJ to help out the directer with the effects that he decided that if he ever did another starwars movie he decided that it would always be him...

 

In what would turn out to be Kershner's final interview in October, he actually does touch on it:

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

The question in the article implies that he turned it down - I'm not sure he was ever offered the job at all. Interestingly, though, Kershner does say that if the prequels had been made earlier, he would have happily directed one.

GL simply didn't want to direct again.

 

I think George wanted to remain the producer for it and not have the stress of directing on his already busy plate.

 

My understanding is that George was pissed at Kersh for taking too long and costing him too much money while making ESB.

That's also why Kurtz was given the heave-ho as producer.

 

From Rinzler's Making Of ESB & other sources, it seems that Kurtz was the one GL blamed primarily, not Kershner (& fair enough, too - it's the producer's job to keep things moving & light a fire under a slow-moving director, if need be). Kurtz was actually replaced by Howard Kazanjian before the film was finished.

Even so, I think the resentment between various parties following ESB has been exaggerated. Kurtz was still involved with LFL early during the development of ROTJ, but eventually they parted ways. I don't know if Kershner was ever actually offered the job of directing ROTJ.

 

IGNFF: It was never George's intention to direct Empire?

KURTZ: No, no. After Star Wars, he didn't really want to direct the others. I think he was unhappy that I ? I'm the one that recommended Kershner, and had worked with him before. I think he was a good choice for Empire, I think he worked really well, but he wasn't the kind of director... George, I think, had in the back of his mind that the director was a sort of stand-in ? that he could phone him up every night and tell him what to do and kind of direct vicariously over the telephone. That never happened. Kershner's not that kind of director, and even when George showed up a couple of times on the set, he found that it wasn't easy to maneuver Kershner into doing what he would have done.

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.

IGNFF: Would you say, in trying to transition out of Star Wars, that your departure was acrimonious?

KURTZ: No, no... I think it was... I think we both were frustrated and decided we just didn't want to work together anymore for the time being. Also, I had for a long time wanted to work again with Jim Henson, and he wanted me to do The Dark Crystal with him, and it was an entirely different kind of challenge. 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. So the idea of doing something like Dark Crystal, a whole film made up of mechanical creatures with very little in the way of optical effects, trying to make that come to life was an entirely different kind of challenge. That was much more appealing to me.

IGNFF: So it was a mutual ...

KURTZ: It was pretty much a mutual thing, yeah.
Source

 

I always thought it was b/c of the fights Lucas kept having with the Director's Guild. After ESB they fined Kersh b/c of the credits following the movie. Lucas paid the fine and left the guild. I thought that I'd read that b/c of that he had to find a foreign director b/c he couldn't use someone like Kersh or Spielberg for ROTJ.

 

Yes. I believe that is right.
Steven Spielberg was always the first choice to direct Return of the Jedi--it was going to be his movie.
The Hollywood politics with the guild prohibited the use of Spielberg. Here is one of the few points where the Lucas rebellion against the studios and status quo actually adversely impacted his projects. Spielberg's version of Star Wars would have been an epic finale to the saga.