Gary Kurtz interview

[Robot Monkey]

IGN Film Force has a fascinating interview with Gary Kurtz, an early collaborator of George Lucas.

 

He's pretty forthcoming about his Star Wars experiences and Lucas. It isn't quite a "burn all bridges" tell-all, and he claims to have a cordial relationship with Lucas at the time of the interview.

 

Regardless, the interview has quite a few interesting nuggets, including why Jabba wasn't included in the first film. They decided that Jabba's presence was redundant as the necessary information was given in the Greedo scene -- not quite the "we wanted to do it but couldn't" story we've heard from various sources.

 

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/376/376873p1.html

 

Since the subject of Star Wars is curiously inflammatory in some places, I'd like to ask members to give some thought to their comments -- I don't think anyone will be served by a Lucas or Kurtz bashfest.

 

-j

[Beer Monkey]

I've read that before. It has often seemed to me that Lucas repeatedly second-guesses the decisions that he and others made long ago. I think he has contributed some good things to the business/art, but I think his legacy would be stronger if he would think more about the future and less about the past.

[Robot Monkey]

Originally posted by Beer Monkey@Feb 10 2004, 04:25 PM

... It has often seemed to me that Lucas repeatedly second-guesses the decisions that he and others made long ago...

That reminds of me of this quote from the Kurtz interview:

 

Jean Renoir said in a documentary interview that we did with him when we were all film students, that something that he learned from his father was that, for an artist, the most important thing is to know when you're done, and leave it.

 

Also, upon rereading the interview, I think I mischaracterized the reasoning behind omitting the Jabba scene. There were a number of factors involved in the decision, not just the notion that it might be redundant.

 

-j