Irvin Kershner

Can't find any more than that he never was upset over the changes made in the SE.  But even Kasdan defended George's right to change the films and now he wrote the next film in the series.

He did a commentary for it, and never mentions the changes. Either he didn't notice them or was told not to comment.

I listened to the commentary hoping he'd be like "Wait a minute, I don't remember that."

How did you like the changes made to Empire for the 1997 theatrical rerelease?

My film is the way I cut it. The other films were changed - a lot. My film, I can tell you just what was done. The Snow Creature [Wampa] was added, which was good for merchandising. It was okay, but I could have lived without it.
 
When I went up to San Anselmo, California, to see the work in progress on the Special Edition, we looked at the film, and I was making some notes about color changes and sound - never about cutting. No cut changes. And we came to the scene where the group is on Cloud City, walking through a corridor. When I had originally shot it, I was not happy, and I told George I didn't like the set because it was just a corridor and we should have had round openings so you see the city as they walked through. It would have cost a lot of money to open it up and put miniatures out there, and it would have taken more time to build it, and you're always fighting time.
 
So, I'm sitting in the screening room looking at the scene. They walk down the corridor, and here are the openings and there is the city. I was shocked. I said, "George, look!" And he said, "Yeah. It's a gift for you." But those were the only changes.

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/empire-strikes-back-director-irvin-kershner

Awesome find!

The cgi opening up of cloud city to make it more lively was his idea, wow.

skyjedi2005 said:

The cgi opening up of cloud city to make it more lively was his idea, wow.

 Being able to see more of the city using miniature sets and models was his idea. The crummy CGI was Lucasfilm.
; )

While he was complicit in 1997, a month before his death he told a different story about the DVD version:

Is it satisfying that Empire has been changed the least of the original trilogy with the 1997 Special Editions and DVD release?

When the film was released in 1997 and later put into DVD, I was very gratified that it was almost unchanged, except the sound was much improved, whereas Star Wars and Jedi had big changes.

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

Saying that he wished that they had been able to have windows overlooking Cloud City when they made the film in 1983, versus saying that they should add said windows 20 years later, are two very different things.  It sounds like he said the former, not that the latter was his idea.

lucasdroid said:

Man, George was really best when he choose awesome talent.  He's good at that. Copolla is wrong. George isn't a good filmmaker but he's good at recognizing talent. And Kershner was the man. I need to go find all of his films now and watch them.

You will probably be disappointed. I saw most of his major films and they range from very poor to average at the best. In Empire he was basically a hired actor-director and he was provided with great material (script, art design, concept ideas etc. all of which basically directed by Lucas) and a very good team to work with.

I wouldn't call him too talented either. You may be unaware but a huge amount of time had to be spent on principal production of ESB (6 months, twice as much as on either SW or ROTJ) partly to his inability. A competent director should be able to make the scenes work in a few takes by working things out in his head and rely a proper direction to the actors. Having available countless takes, good script and competent team... you can pick a random guy from a street and the film will be eventually made well.

It is easy to make fun of the apparent Lucas' "3 takes per scenes" approach in SW. But that is how the films have to be made under tight time and money restriction. And such conditions call for a talented director with ability to make scenes work in a few takes (btw I am not saying Lucas is good on-set director). I am sure every director would like unlimited time but that is very rarely allowed (Kubrick is one such example).

I kinda feel sorry for Kurtz. He was either to allow taking a take after take and get good scenes and allow the film to go over-schedule and over-budget; or force Kershner to work in a timely fashion and probably get bad scenes. Fortunately for the sake of film, he chose the former and unfortunately got fired for a consequent budget increase.

SilverWook said:

Having read the original making of ESB book, I disagree. Whatever you think of his work before and after Empire, Kershner rose to the occasion. There were many events on the production beyond anyone's control. That's the nature of the business, you can't plan for everything.

ESB was a far more complex film than Star Wars, and Jedi is no ESB.

Well I didn't say it was entirely his fault. I said partly which I think is completely correct according to the information we have.

Yes ESB was more complex than SW in terms of on-set related production but not proportional to the eventual time spent. As for ROTJ, I believe it had the same level of on-set related complexity as ESB, or even higher due to all the creatures involved.