Basically, the Gary Kurtz quote shows that I was wrong. Lucas did NOT merge Vader and Anakin until Empire (ESB), and it was with Empire, not Jedi (ROTJ) that he did this. The earlier ‘father Vader twist’ idea that Lucas had during the writing stage/pre-production of SW (ANH) was dropped before the final version of the script was done.
Fair play to you, TS. Not many would admit that. 👍
Gary Kurtz: “When we made Star Wars, Vader and Anakin were two separate people. The idea that Vader was Luke’s father didn’t exist. I remember Lucas talked about Anakin having killed Vader and then taking his identity, but that was dropped early on. The whole twist in Empire was new and unexpected.”
Star Wars Insider #138, 2011
Unfortunately the above quote found online by TS (via a ‘google search’) does NOT exist in ‘Star Wars Insider #138, 2011’.Both TS and myself have had a thorough look through Issue #138 of SW Insider (which is actually the issue for January 2013 - and NOT 2011) - and there is no quote or mention of Gary Kurtz in that issue.
I’ve had a look through adjoining issues, the 2011 issues - also online in general - and cannot find such a quote from Gary Kurtz.
It does NOT look like the quote is actually from Gary Kurtz - or exists outside of what TS found in that google search.
If anyone does know of this quote - and where is originates from - please post it up in here. Thanks, as always. 👍
September Edit: as confirmed by Tosche Station - the above quote attributed to Gary Kurtz is indeed a fake.
Kurtz made no such statement - with people now trying to invent online quotes for Gary Kurtz to try and re-write film history.
For anyone interested in when Vader was retconned to become Luke’s father… these may be of interest for further info:-
(from multiple sources - mainly consistent and confirmed - including from Lucasfilm high-ups, Marcia Lucas, & JW Rinzler etc)
• Category #5 of George Lucas: Star Wars Creator, Unreliable Narrator & Time Travelling Revisionist…
• Emre’s two ‘info & image’ posts on the subject here: link & link - citing JW Rinzler and earlier drafts of scripts.
• The 2019 ‘Star Wars Mythbusting’ twitter thread by Lucasfilm Creative Arts Manager Phil Szostak
• and the Marcia Lucas interview in ‘Icons Uncovered’ documentary where she talks about how and when George retconned Vader to be Luke’s father - whilst writing the 2nd draft of Empire Strikes Back (GL, Marcia, Huyk & Katz were all having dinner).
Hi, oojason. I actually didn’t confirm that, per our discussions. I said that it would be ironic if the only known quote from Kurtz contradicting that Vader was Luke’s father when STAR WARS was made turned out to not be genuine. I had also said that were fans to try and re-write history via a ‘pro-Lucas’ quote, they’d have someone affiliated with the production of the film (Kurtz or whomever associated) say that “Oh yeah, Lucas told us Vader was Luke’s father but to keep quiet about it”. I no longer buy the notion that Lucas would have had this idea for STAR WARS then ‘drop’ it for whatever reason(s). But some sort of worry that the original Vader twist had been ‘compromised’ - during the later phases of EMPIRE’s post-production or release - might explain why Lucas changed the premise and some of the ‘scaffolding’ behind the twist to the familiar, ‘canonical’ version come JEDI. And this alternate idea does highlight where 1970’s Lucas and Kurtz were in alignment: the Kurosawa-inspired philosophy concerned with moral choices and their consequences (the how and WHY Luke’s father would have chose to take on the Darth Vader identity). Which harkens back to a known quote of Kurtz (from 1999? early 2000’s?) about what he had preferred that Vader’s plea/appeal to Luke in EMPIRE would have really been centered on: a ‘righting’ of wrongs (paraphrasing).
The Marcia Lucas Katz/Huyck thing doesn’t track at all with any contemporaneous statements from back in the early 1980’s. Had it actually happened, I doubt that biographer Dale Pollock (“Skywalking” 1983) would have failed to notice it. Though I suppose that Huyck ‘joke’ inspiring the twist could sort of serve as a provisional band-aid for those who find the just-so theory that Lucas would have come up with the twist all on his own in 1978 while writing EMPIRE, but fail to come up with it in 1975 when writing STAR WARS, to be on the very low-end of the probability scale. EDIT to add: Marcia was probably not in the know about Lucas’ story meeting in December 29, 1975 with Kurtz, Alan Dean Foster, Lippincott, where he talked about how in the sequel - the second ‘book’, a ‘proto-EMPIRE’ of sorts - that we’d find out who Darth Vader really is.