[Haarspalter said:]
If you want to find out what George Lucas was thinking when he made the PTHe was thinking the same things he was thinking when he made the OT if you ask me. But there were no longer any constraints or people to reign him in.
I think if George could have, he would have made the originals exactly like he made the prequels.
I doubt that. He had practically no constraints in ESB and ROTJ as he held the rights to the sequels and was doing them with his own company. Even in ANH he had mostly free hands since the studio did not seem to care about the film prior to the release.
I would say it is mostly that in OT he actually had good ideas and was open to feedback from his collaborators.
Irvin made ESB what it was.
End
I love people who think the director is the only person responsible for the success or failure of a movie.
So the exec producer is. Yeah hitchcock, Sergio leone, coppola films etc weren’t down to direction!
Kersh was a huge part of what made ESB great, arguably the biggest. But Kasdan still wrote the script, and GL had more control than most EPs, though not nearly as much as on ROTJ. Not to mention Kersh was no auteur. I’d say there were a number of talented directors who GL could have hired that would have made just as good a film. On the other hand, GL was intent on being more controlling on ROTJ (and making it faster and cheaper), so it is unlikely any director he would have hired wouldn’t have been willing to completely roll over for him. I’d say ESB is what it is because GL had just the right amount of input, and not any more.