CT Gary Kurtz

There's some stuff I've seen as of late about Gary Kurtz and why he left Lucasfilm and the Star Wars series. Then after digging around into Kurtz's filmography I found some interesting things. It seems like lately Gary likes to go and sorta badmouth Lucas. Well, maybe not necissarily bad mouth him, but basically say things about Lucas that aren't positive and could possibly be seen as bashing George. Now, whatever your opinions about the prequels and special editions to the original trilogy, leave that aside for a moment. You don't have to like episodes I-III or the special editions. I'm just going to write some things I found out about our old pal Gary, as he paints himself to be the good guy, while Lucas is just the well intenioned man, who decided to throw story away for effects and marketing. There is a story that goes throughout Episode I-VI. You may not like it, but there is a story. So, now on to what I've got to say, and man is it a lot.

Basically, Kurtz, for decades, has spun this yarn that somehow he was a co-creator of Star Wars, and deserves much of the praise for ANH and TESB. Unfortunately he's had a ready audience of OT-only fans who have concluded that Lucas jumped the shark and Kurtz must have reigned him in. Yeah, that would be neat if it were all true, but it's not. All people have to do is look at Kurtz and Lucas' track record after their "divorce" to reveal the truth: Post Empire Kurtz has two major studio films to his name, The Dark Crystal, and Return to Oz. Interestingly in both cases the studio wanted Kurtz fired because both films were wildly over budget and behind schedule, and The Dark Crystal ended the friendship between Kurtz and Jim Henson because Kurtz kept trying to insert himself into the creative process, and the Dark Crystal was Henson's baby. Now to show you what kind of an ******* Lucas is, Lucas went to Disney and lobbied to studio to keep both his friend Walter Murch as director AND Kurtz as Executive Producer despite Disney wanting to fire Kurtz on the spot. Lucas supervised the end of the production and gave the studio some of his own money as insurance... boy that Lucas sure is a jerk.

Post Oz, no one in the studio would touch Kurtz with a 30 foot electric cattle prod because the man simple could not keep big budget movies under control... just look at the list: Star Wars, Empire, Dark Crystal, Return to Oz. And I'm sure that had to grind his gears because after all he was the producer on two of the most successful films of all time. Meanwhile Lucas continued to churn out hit after hit, ranging from blockbusters or eventual cult films, and successfully grew a company he had envisioned when Kurtz was still a part of the team. So lets establish a couple of things here, Lucas and Kurtz were not best buds. If you look at Lucas, like most people, he has friends, and he has business partners/co-workers. Walter Murch, Brian de Palma, John Milius, Francis Coppola are all friends. In fact Lucas' friends have been friends for decades, he clearly values friendships. Heck the evidence that Lucas and Kurtz were never buddies can be found in Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola and Lucas had an enormous and public falling out, mainly based on Coppola's resentment of Lucas' success (Coppola said as much), but that relationship was patched up long ago and they remain close friends to this day. Kurtz was never in that inner circle; he was a guy hired to do a job. Heck Lucas even attempted to "bury the hatchet" years ago and invited him to his AFI Awards dinner, and involved him in a number of Star Wars anniversary projects, even while Kurtz was bad mouthing him on the convention circuit... Man that Lucas is a Class-A jerk. Now Kurtz is out there spinning more fiction:

1) Like "Fox wasn't worried about Star Wars' budget." Seriously??? What planet is he from? This is the same studio that was pinching pennies and barely spending money on their final movie in one of their tentpole franchises, "Planet of the Apes." They spent a whopping grand total of $1.7 million on Battle for the Planet of the Apes (quite a bit of that on promotion, the actual production budget was closer to $1 million and it shows), does Kurtz seriously expect people to believe that Fox was not concerned when the budget moved from $7.5 million to $10.5 million, especially when few on the board believed in, or understood the project? That's simply fantasy.
2) He's also stated that Lucas basically wanted to "remote control" Kershner during Empire. Yeah, the first person I'd think of to remote control as a director would be MY FORMER TEACHER... yeah, that's going to happen. I can pretty much guarantee if I asked my former Filmmaking 202 teacher to shut up and direct the movie I hired them for the way I want it, he would tell me to pound sand. Irvin Kershner had a 20 year track record going into this film; the last person you would hire if you want to "remote control" a director is someone with a fairly long resume. You would select an up and coming direct. No, J.W. Rinzler's "Making of Empire" makes it clear why Lucas became involved in the production... cost overruns and budget delays. Lucas hired Kershner because he trusted him, and he fully expected he would be able to sit back in California and focus on post production and editing. Kurtz' failures as a producer forced Lucas to come to London to get Empire back on track.
3) Kurtz later says that "Lucas never was influenced by Joseph Campbell". How the hell would Kurtz know? He wouldn't, he's just talking out of his ass. Lucas never states that Star Wars was entirely based on Campbell's work, what he has always contended was that Star Wars, like other myths, follows certain patterns which was a central thesis of Campbell's. Lucas makes it very clear in the process of working on the early drafts of Star Wars that he started to do more research and came across Campbell: "...that's when I started doing more strenuous research on fairy tales, folklore, and mythology, and I started reading Joe's books. Before that I hadn't read any of Joe's books. It was very eerie because in reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces I began to realize that my first draft of Star Wars was following classic motifs, so I modified my next draft according to what I'd been learning about classical motifs and made it a little bit more consistent."

That seems fairly reasonable, and I doubt Kurtz would have any knowledge if that were the case. Given that Marcia Lucas confirms that during the writing process of Jedi, Lucas has Campbell's books on his shelf, it's pretty reasonable to assume he was using them as a guide. I'm really not sure what Kurtz is trying to insinuate here, and it's fairly silly. It's patently obvious to anyone with half a brain that Lucas was influenced by multiple sources when it came to Star Wars. All one has to do is look at the motifs and themes running through the OT, the PT and TCW to see that. I'm surprised Kurtz has the time to keep leveling these sorts of claims at Lucas given he's in the middle of production of Gangster Kittens right now.

 

I'm a hardcore lifelong OT fan, and I think Kurtz is given way, way too much credit for Star Wars' success.

 

I feel bad for saying this, but I don't know Kurtz well despite the OT being my favorite film trilogy. I suppose, other then George Lucas himself, I always admired Irvin Kersherner, Lawrence Kasdan and Ralph Mcquarrie the most for helping creating the some of my favorite movies.

 

Luke Skywlaker1138

That's a big and very interesting post you wrote, but may I humbly request you provide some sources for Gary Kurtz statements like "Lucas was never influenced by Joseph Campbell." As a matter of fact, there was another "Yoda" (George Lucas called Campbell his Yoda in one event honring Mr. Campbell's achievements) if you re-read the list of the books on George Lucas' shelf according to the Skywalking biography.

I had the personal privilege of being the panel host of the 2002 convention in Hamburg with plenty of OT actors, and when Gary Kurtz came onto the podium I "imprisoned" him there for at least two hours (until he humbly asked for a drink of water and to be released). As a human person he was everything that would constitute a gentleman in the best traditional sense, and never once did he say anything that could remotely qualify as an attack against George Lucas. It just wasn't his style even though the convention audience provided him with plenty of opportunities to leash out against George Lucas, I should add.

He spoke his mind on various issues but never at the expense of George Lucas. When the question came from the guests whether it's true that Lucas wanted Greedo to shot first, Kurtz diplomatically replied with a counter-question: "Is that not something he could have already visualized with the VFX instruments at his disposal back in 1976?".

Yes, it is known that he didn't keep the budget under the control as Lucas wanted him to do, and Lucas gave him a second chance for The Empire Strikes Back to show that he can do that. But the essential problem here (as laid out in Rinzler's Making of books and other sources) remained that Kurtz & Kershner wanted to make ESB a state-of-the-art and great film whilst George Lucas had this "that's good enough, no need to go for more" attitude (which IMHO shows in ROJ and that's not only owed to the unfortunate absence of production designer John Barry who died during ESB).

From a legal point of view Kurtz was wrong because he spent too much of George's money (who had to crawl to Fox to ask for additional funding which he had tried to avoid at all cost), but from an artistic point of view we got such a great and memorable film that would have looked much cheaper had Lucas remained in total control.

 

You know, you have an excellent point when you say that Gary Kurtz doesn’t have a single post-STAR WARS hit and that Lucas propped up his career. That is a terrific point. Now let’s compare that to the extraordinary list of post-STAR WARS hits that George Lucas has. Of course, everyone knows about the INDIANA JONES movies…which were propped up by Steven Spielberg, but he had other non-Spielberg hits like—

Like…

Um, he made HOWARD THE DUCK, but that was a disaster. WILLOW really wasn’t a hit. RADIOLAND MURDERS was a disaster. RED TAILS was a disaster.

What an evil, nasty man George Lucas is, leeching off the goodwill of Steven Spielberg to have a single hit after STAR WARS (hey, if you wanna do it with Kurtz, remember it goes both ways).

 

Lucas ran a company that made revolutionary special effects. Kurtz was lost among many impoverished producers.

 

Entirely but that is Lucas' enormous generosity in evidence. In a Hollywood situation when someone fails you badly once they are almost always done. What's does Lucas do? Bring him back and give him another shot! Where he fails again but he's still given sole producer credits on both ANH and TESB.

Kurtz then spends literally decades basically cutting Lucas down and creating a false narrative of his importance to the creation of Star Wars and to the first two movies that is ludicrous.

That Lucas did exactly what he wanted to when he did the prequels and it was great success all over again shows what we all know to be the case. It's really ultimately about him. Everyone else can be replaced but not the creator. We've seen it yet again with Disney when they did it without him and failed.

Amusing but obviously it doesn't at all work since Lucas created Indiana Jones and brought Spielberg onboard to direct.

The point as above is that Lucas was nothing but class to Kurtz while Kurtz was consistently classless to Lucas.

Asking what Lucas has done besides Star Wars and Indiana Jones is one of those "Really? Come on seriously?" moments.

 

Kurtz says that no one ever really challenged Lucas in his later years (meaning during the PT production) and I think that's kind of true. And I think even George realized that and so George started surrounding himself with people who weren't shy of challenging him again when he started the CLONE WARS series. I don't think it's hard for people to notice that the quality of George's work was firing on all cylinders during the OT and CLONE WARS, and everything was just a bit off during the PT production.

I also think Kurtz gets a lot of flack for letting TESB go over budget. I mean, I think one or even two of the set spaces they were going to use burned down while Stanley Kubrick was filming the Shining and that immediately threw a wrench in the production budget of TESB. Kurtz was basically behind from day one as far as the entire production was concerned.

 

And that, is complete nonsense. A baseless claim made by people who didn't like the prequels, with zero proof whatsoever. It gets directly countered by any making of material, without the material even trying to do so.

It's the same old "I didn't like something, I must find a reason as for why that is the case, and it certainly can't be because it just didn't work for me, instead there must have been something wrong with the creators" rubbish that comes up every time. Claims like that are nothing but an insult, made even worse by there not being anything that remotely suggests that it is true. Lucas didn't surround himself with different people when he made the Clone Wars, nor was there suddenly someone who challenged him when there was nobody back when he made the prequels.

As for Kuro's revisionist history:
Lucas constantly bailed out others (friends and colleagues) so that they could get their work done. That doesn't somehow mean that those were actually "his" products. Not to mention Indiana Jones, and the largest parts of all technological advances the industry made over the last few decades. Heck, Lucas bailed out Kurtz multiple times when he yet again couldn't keep production running properly and the people in charge wanted to let him go.

It's really funny how Kurtz gets revered so much by a specific group of people, even though he didn't really succeed at the main part of his job, which was to keep production in line, while McCallum, who got it done every time, somehow gets reduced to being a yes-man whose supposed lack of challenging Lucas was one of the reasons for the supposed "lack of quality" of the prequels. It's like the world is upside down. Kurtz had his qualities, but he being around for ANH and ESB and not being around for everything that followed was most definately not the reason for any supposed change in quality.

 

Indeed.
People are comparing apples and oranges when they compare Kurtz's statements about the OT (statements that are from years/decades after the making of the films) with McCallum's statements about the PT (which are contemporary to the making of the films).

McCallum gives off the impression of being a "yes man" just because he made very enthusiastic interviews to promote the films. Obviously, he's not going to say anything bad, or criticise any aspect of the production.

The idea that Kurtz challenged Lucas comes from interviews made much later, in which he tried to create the idea that he left Lucasfilm because of creative differences and not because he was fired (before Empire was even finished!).

The truth is, we don't really know how challening McCallum was during the making of the PT (regardless of how enthusiastic he was while promoting the films), and we don't really know how challenging Kurtz was during the making of the OT (because statements made decades after don't mean anything). But we do know which producer managed to keep the production under control, and which producer didn't.

 

I've seen people criticize McCallum, but his role was to do what Lucas wanted to bring his vision to life, where other Producers have more power than the director. Totally different because Lucas owned the property and company.

 

McCallum definitely comes across as a George enthusiast (not in a bad way)in the DVD interviews/commentary but who knows what went on behind the scenes.

 

Okay.

Okay.

 

Kurtz can be both too revered and too demonized by various sections of the fandom.

To the issue that he let ANH and ESB go over budget.
To me, putting all the blame on Kurtz is both unfair and not accurate.
Both films were NOT easy productions given how much they had to invent for the film.
In ESB, you had the fire that was already mentioned.
You had really bad snow in Norway. Here Kershner has praised Kurtz and said he was invaluable, being "elbows deep" and not letting the situation bring him down and thus kept moral up for the cast and crew.
Then you had a second unit director, John Barry, who fell ill on set and died of meningitis. Not only was this very tragic and hard for the cast and crew, they also had to get checked out because this disease is contagious.
Thankfully, no one had caught it.

Adding to this, ILM, which had to be built from scratch for ANH, had been partially shut down after that film and people had moved on. So they had to be brought back and the whole facility was moved closer to where Lucas lived.
This cost money and time.

So quite a lot was out of Kurtz control or things he could not plan for.

As to if he "challenged" Lucas.
Kershner had been promised that this was his film and he took his time. He wanted to get it right.
Understandable, if he delivered a "dud" Star Wars film, it could reflect badly on him.
From what I've read, Kershner, Kasdan and Kurtz all wanted to the film to take it's time, to build slowly.
While Lucas wanted things to move along faster.
This was discussed and debated and Lucas was not arrogantly refusing to listen nor where the others trying to spite him
They just had different ideas on how to proceed. And it was a discussion, where they could present their arguments and then they moved on.

But when they started to fall behind and the budget was going over, Lucas, again understandably, was worried.
It was his money, he had seen "More American graffiti", which was a critical bomb and did not do well at the BO.
And the Holiday special, that made Star Wars into a bad joke.
On top of that, he saw what Coppola was going through with "Apocalypse Now", where he was putting a lot of his own money, house etc to make this film. And the production was anything but easy and Coppola could loose a lot if the film failed.
So Lucas asked Kurtz to get things to move along faster.
And Kurtz was employed by Lucas and it was his job. But he could see what Kershner was doing and the quality of the work he was doing.
So Kurtz choose to support Kershner and Kershner tried to speed things up but his way of filming was different from Lucas.
And he was adamant in trying to make the best film he could.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

ESB is my favorite movie ever; so it seems like they found the perfect balance between the action and the character driven stuff.

 

Yes. As is Lucas himself, and many other key collaborators (Lawrence Kasdan, Irvin Kershner or Marcia Lucas for example).
Overall I agree with your post. Making a film is a very complicated process and based on collaboration. It's not about "good guys" and "bad guys".

Putting all the blame on Kurtz is not accurate, of course. I don't think it's a matter of "blaming" anyone, it's just a matter of saying that it was his responsability to keep the shooting under control. I think not having Kurtz producing the third movie is perfectly logical, given the circumstances.

I don't agree with what you say about ILM, though. The fact that re-building ILM took a lot of time and money doesn't have anything to do with the shooting, which went massively over budget and schedule. Star Wars was shot in 17 weeks. Empire took 27 weeks! And only because they eliminated many scenes from the script just to be able to finish the movie somehow.

I think some fans feel certain appeal to the idea of a film going massively over budged and over schedule and being very very hard to make, which then goes on to become a hit. It's a very romantic idea, and that's why Kershner and Kurtz get a lot of love. But I don't agree with that at all.
For example, I don't think not shooting many of the scripted Dagobah scenes of Luke training just because they didn't have time was any good for the film. In this case, Kershner taking his time to get the perfect movie had the effect of not being able to do many of the planned scenes (which could've been potentially awesome)

 

If a film has a very hard shoot and yet the cast and crew pull together and make something great, then I can give props for that.
For ex Coppola and Apocalypse Now. That was a very troubled filming and yet Coppola pulled through and made a great film. Had it failed, it might have destroyed Coppola, who had put a lot of his own money on the line.

Heavens Gate is the example of the opposite, it was a bomb and caused United Artists to go bankrupt.

About "blame", from what I've read, the production of RotJ was not all that easy and there were budget problems there as well.
Pre-production took a long time and they wasted money on building sets that were no longer in the script.
Ex they built the lava floor for the throne room scene that was not in the script any longer but no one had told them.
Post-production also took a long time as Lucas reshot quite a bit. Partly because he was unhappy with what Marquand had filmed but also because there were problems with the film stock. Someone had bought left over film stock from Raiders, to save money, but when it was used for Jedi, the stock had gotten older and the colors were a bit off.
In all, from what I've seen, the break even point for Jedi were quite a bit higher than for Empire, over 100 M dollars compared with 50-60 M dollars.

And yet the budget issues with Jedi are not brought up as often, and if it is, the problems are framed as "the usual troubles that big films run into." Which is fine.
But with ANH and ESB, the budget issues is instead framed as signs of obvious mismanagement, ie to blame Kurtz.

ESB did not have an easy shoot, the snow, the fire, the death of a second unit director.
Plus all the stuff they had to invent.
ANH was not easy nor was RotJ.

That Lucas got worried with Empire, as I've said, that was not strange, it was his money and if Empire failed, it would be the end for his dreams of Skywalker ranch and all that.
But it did very well, far better than what was normal for sequels back then.

So with Jedi, Lucas had wanted to be less involved, to patch things up with Marcia. And his initial plan was for Spielberg to direct. But when the DGA decided to be petty and stupid and fined Kershner, Lucas paid the fine and quit. Again, I can understand that.
But this meant that Spielberg was not available. And either Lucas had to direct himself or get a younger director that was not in the guild or one from Europe. He choose Richard Marquand.
Who was not a bad director but he was in over his head with a film this size and esp all the special effects.
So Lucas had to be more involved than with Empire and had to be in London far longer than he had planned. So instead of having time to patch things up, his marriage went downhill and eventually Marcia filed for a divorce.
Now I doubt that much if any of these troubles would have been avoided if Kurtz was the producer.
The DGA thing would still have ruled out Spielberg and all that came from that.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

I think, for better or worse, Kurtz sides with his directors. And unfortunately for Lucas, that meant siding with Kershner during the production of TESB. Having read the MAKING OF books by J.W. Rinzler, there is a really interesting shift in thought process concerning Lucas because he goes from being the director for ANH and essentially becoming the studio head for TESB.

For ANH, George felt the original corridor that was going to be used for the first scene (the door blowing up and Stormtroopers rushing in) was originally not going to work. The set that was already built was the smaller corridor where Leia is seen giving the Death Star plans to Artoo. Lucas says something to the effect of (and I'm paraphrasing) IF THE DIRECTOR SAYS THE PICTURE NEEDS SOMETHING, THEN THE PICTURE NEEDS IT.

Which is very hypocritical since, while reading the MAKING OF TESB, Lucas keeps trying to put his foot down about things on TESB and essentially being told by Kurtz that if Kershner (the director) says the movie needs something, then the movie needs it.

Lucas expected Kurtz to keep siding with him and keep the director in check, but instead Kurtz sided with the director and kept Lucas in check because Kurtz remained loyal to the director and not Lucas.

 

I still want to see the Kurtz version of Return of Jedi. Also i agree with him about the special editions, more ships and effects are fine but anything that messes with the flow of the story is a no go.

 

I suspect the ending Kurtz would have preferred for a standalone ROTJ (rather than a third film that led into a Sequel Trilogy with Luke's lost sister) would be something like the end of Mad Max Fury Road: Nux Han dies heroically in the finale, Furiosa Leia becomes Queen/head of the New Republic, and Max Luke wanders off into the sunset.

 

I bet Kurtz would have pushed for Harrison and Carrie to have more to do than stand in front of a door for the final act of the film.

I've always disagreed with Han dying at the end of the trilogy. How did no one think it would be great for Han and Leia to get married at the end? A wedding would have been a great ending, followed up with the Ewok kegger celebration we've all grown to love.