Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

Done

Much thanks. Shall proceed to avoid it until movie time.

No. The broken one was green

Edited by blkwhtrbbt on Mar 27th 2019 at 1:08:23 PM

No, the broken lightsaber was blue, because it was Luke's first lightsaber that Obi-Wan gave him. We haven't seen the green one in the ST yet.

Correct the broken one was indeed blue. It was the one used to also cut down younglings.

The Fate of ROJ lightsaber is unknown currently.

Oh shut me up, you're right. Wow. Wait. So where's the green one?

Presumably, Luke threw it away after he decided to quit. I mean, he nearly threw away the blew one, too.

Count Dooku of all people gets... an audio play?

He does have a nice voice.

Okay, random question, could someone please give me as objective a read as possible on this Gary Kurtz guy? All I know about him is that he was one of the producers on ANH and ESB, and that he helped coach the actors. I was just thinking about, the other day, how during the height of the Prequel hate a lot of fans considered this dude basically a saint - you'd hear all the time how he was the real genius of the OT, kept Lucas on a leash, was the only reason the OT wasn't a So Bad, It's Good flash-in-the-pan, and so on and on. There are so many untrue rumors about SW's production (particularly from the hatedom), that I'm unsure just what his actual role was and how influential he was in reality. If his accomplishments were being exaggerated, also, why did the PT hatedom latch onto this one crew member in particular?

Any help?

From what I understand, Gary Kurtz got into hot water with George Lucas after the latter found out about The Empire Strikes Back production going over schedule and over budget under Kurtz's watch. Apparently, TESB Director Kershner "took a long time in coming to decisions" for the film, and Kurtz couldn't keep him on schedule, which means the cost began to rise higher than Lucas could pay off with his own money. That is not saying that Kurtz was a bad producer since he was successful with previous, smaller films like American Graffiti. It seems, however, he was not suited to the big budget production that Star Wars has become, which has to face the reality of fiancees.

Kurtz's fame likely arouse from the Midichlorians controversy in The Phantom Menace as well as fans accusing Lucas of making Star Wars a Merchandise-Driven franchise rather than some Sacred Cow. According to this article:

And combine that with his cynical comments about Lucas being more toy-focused since Return of the Jedi, you could see why a lot of fans see him as My Real Daddy.

However, when you factor the Troubled Production of The Empire Strikes Back and Lucas's fear that the film might end up becoming a Franchise Killer had it not make huge amounts of money to offset the cost, I don't think it's as black and white as some fans would like to believe. Kurtz may have ambitious visions for Star Wars, but I don't think he's fully grasped the financial risk that Star Wars poses since A New Hope.

Edited by Shadao on Mar 28th 2019 at 8:08:45 AM

Kurtz was one of the few higher-ups that vocalized direct disapproval of Lucas and his control of the franchise, as mentioned he was functionally the number-two guy after Lucas himself. They clashed so hard on TESB that early into ROTJ he decided to back out, eventually going on to produce The Dark Crystal because he felt that was more interesting and inventive than the direction Star Wars was going (he hated the Death Star II, the Ewoks, wanted Han to die and Luke to wander off alone).

By the time of the prequels he gave some candid interviews explaining his time with Star Wars, and criticized both the changes to the original films and introduction of the midichlorians. Although I do recall he had some regrets doing so, as he realized fans were using that as fodder to harass Lucas (much like Hamill is backing off on his TLJ criticisms).

• Cracks Knuckles with the glee of wanting to debunk an old nostrum *

Gary Kurtz was Lucas' production partner on American Graffiti and A New Hope. He parted ways with Lucas during The Empire Strikes Back.

He and Lucas were friends and colleagues on the first films, and Kurtz helped negotiate creative control for Lucas in the first two films. As Shadao states, Kurtz and Lucas parted ways on TESB. In general whenever you have a Star Wars controversy and debate. Always take note that Lucas always quiet and never gives a response whenever people like Kurtz mouth off about how he's the one involved with the ideas and so on.

Lucas studied anthropology (a discipline that involves you to understand and learn about social mores and religions in different cultures in particular) in college and was a well-read man and so on. While I am sure he picked Kurtz's brain (as he picked everyone's brain), I don't think Kurtz by himself defined and influenced the concept of the Force and so on.

Kurtz became important for Star Wars fans because he was the embittered ex. He was someone whose career went on the slide after Lucas. He worked on another science-fiction project with Hamill and that went belly-up. He didn't handle the production of TESB very well, and forced Lucas to take on more work than he expected to near the end especially when the budget went out of control. He was gone by the time ROTJ came, and yet he would give rumors that he parted ways because of the Ewoks and so on. And later he became available and accessible to Star Wars fans at a period when they decided to bash ROTJ and the prequels and the re-releases and so on. It became important for fans to separate Star Wars from Lucas, so it became easier to say "Lucas was a nitwit and Kurtz saved him from himself" and so on. This has gotten to the extreme where people credit everyone but Lucas himself for Star Wars. Firstly, thanks to Kurtz's own deal which he secured for Lucas on creative control, he had no control over Lucas. If Lucas didn't like his ideas or didn't accept them, he had full say to reject it. If you want to know about the production of Star Wars. Read J. W. Rinzler's collected volumes on the entire cycle for all 6 films.

Kurtz did produce well and so on. And he was important to Star Wars. But no more so than the actors, than Hamill who was the only one in the cast who really believed in Lucas, then Marcia Lucas, who was important as an editor (albeit not to the extreme that some argue i.e. "she saved the movie in the edit", only people totally ignorant of film editing say that), then John "freaking" Williams, then John Dykstra who invented modern special effects as we know it.

My view is that Lucas' most important creative collaborator on all 6 films is Ben Burtt. The Sound designer of the first 6 films. R 2 D 2, C-3P0, the blaster noices, Vader Breath, that's all him. Heck some of Vader's breaths are his recorded when he went scuba diving. Star Wars' sounds was created by Burtt. Burtt also went on to edit all three prequels.

Thanks. So it does sound like Kurtz was pretty important, but he was not the Bill Finger to Lucas' Bob Kane that detractors of the latter like to say he is.

Edited by HamburgerTime on Mar 28th 2019 at 10:30:54 AM

Attributing Star Wars to "it was all really this guy" is in my opinion an overreaction. At times Lawrence Kasdan was hailed as the real mastermind behind the films (at least with Empire), but the mediocrity of Solo showed he can have his duds too. Movies are collaborative efforts, and while a director or screenwriter or producer may have a large guiding hand than others, they are rarely ever the only one.

George Lucas is the Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, Dick Sprang, Frank Miller, Bruce Timm, and Bob Kane of Star Wars. He came up with the names (which is Kane's only contribution to Batman, he came up with Batman and that's it), the aesthetic (a Space Opera mixed with jidai-geki mixed with weird religion mixed with 70s California cheese, a B-Movie done on the scale of an Epic Movie), the stories (Luke, I Am Your Father...Han-Leia, Lando's character and arc, yep all George), the characters, the names and everything. Gary Kurtz, who passed away in 2018, was important because he could speak producer to Hollywood bigwigs and studios get into the "room where it happens". That's immensely important and crucial. And I am sure that he had ideas and stuff that Lucas cared about and listened to and so on. That's important. Lucas could not have made Star Wars all by himself. He needed collaborators and he knew that and chose his team wisely. But all of them were working for him. And Lucas knew that. That's why he negotiated settlements that allowed Hamill, Fisher and Ford and others to earn profits from SW and draw cheques long after the films are over. As Hamill said, "He didn't have to do that". So no calling Lucas Bob Kane, i.e. a credit stealing cheapskate who didn't share the gold is inaccurate in the extreme.

Lawrence Kasdan polished Lucas' dialogue well but he saw Star Wars as a Money, Dear Boy gig and kept trying to push it in a darker direction because he didn't take the genre all that seriously. So he wanted ROTJ to end on a darker note and so on. That worked fine in TESB which Lucas wanted for a horror vibe (and which for all its "darkness" doesn't actually kill off any characters). Lucas helped produce his first films in return, albeit since it was a sex thriller (Body Heat), Lucas went uncredited and so on since he had become family friendly.

Basically Star Wars is a big collaborative effort but at the center of it all is one man, George Lucas. Lucas is the real-life Palpatine, everything that transpired went just as he had foreseen.

It's really more of an interesting point of discussion whenever people wonder "Why isn't this movie as good as the others?" not realizing that if you turn over 1-2 vital people behind the scenes you can dramatically change the results, even if you see familiar names in key places like the director, writer, etc.

Star Wars is a symphony orchestra. It requires everyone to participate and do their part to make the whole song work. Lucas is the conductor who oversees it all, but he can't make the film all by himself. He needs everyone from the producers to concept artists the actors to the writers to the sound editors to special effects artists to editors to even personal friends there are not credited to make his vision a reality. They help him, he helps them. A symbiotic relationship, you might say. Ironically the theme of midichlorians. They are apart, their works are not as great, like something is missing. When they are together, well, they can certainly make something magical.

Edited by Shadao on Mar 28th 2019 at 8:53:12 AM

Wait, so Lucas is John Williams? What does that make John Williams?

A great poet with a keyboard will eventually write something that looks like it was written by a monkey.

The question of "why isn't this movie as good as the others" in relation to Star Wars is in the eye of the beholder. People only thought TESB is the best Star Wars movie during the late-80s and early 90s. Remember Clerks where the idea that TESB is better than ROTJ is first considered "blasphemy". ROTJ on the other hand is now considered great and Popularity Polynomial has returned in its favor. So that means that for a lot of people Star Wars remained great without Kurtz. In the case of the prequels, now many people are starting to see those films for the awesome works they are. It's getting arthouse attention and so on. That means the idea that "Lucas can't direct" isn't true either.

"Always in motion, the Force is".

John Williams writes and composes the his scores, yes. But imagine if John Williams did not have a talented orchestra to play his music and follow his commands. Imagine if he didn't practice with his team or be given feedback by others on his score. Or in the case of movie scores, imagine if they have little of the film to work on.

After all, the greatest composers can make duds if they don't have the right materials. Danny Elfman, who made the iconic Batman Theme, didn't really have a memorable score for the Justice League because he had so little work with from that film (to the point that some of them were just rough storyboards) and the studio executives wanted him to focus on nostalgia scores instead of new but iconic scores.

Edited by Shadao on Mar 28th 2019 at 8:59:35 AM

Man Kevin Smith's reason for preferring ESB was stupid. Not saying that you're stupid if you prefer ESB, but Smith's reasoning was the epitome of faux-profound tripe.

What's Kevin Smith's reasoning?

IIRC basically "Flowery speech about the meaninglessness of human existence that really just translates to ME SMART BECAUSE ME LIKE SAD ENDING."