TheoOdo said: What Lucas wanted to do with Star Wars seems quite different from what made it a success. The original drafts are a testament to that and the original cut of ANH is regarded as having been a disaster.
Kurtz has said that he challenged Lucas on several of his decisions, and I think it's this combative partnership which resulted in the movies working as well as they did.
The fact that Kurtz was absent when they made Jedi seems to be further evidence of this. It is generally accepted to be lower quality than the rest of the trilogy, which Kurtz worked closely on. The same can be said of the prequels, which seem to be kept afloat only by the Star Wars brand.
On financial success alone, you may be right, but I'd still disagree. Being good at making money is different from being good at making films.
You make valid points-but film-making is by it's very nature a collaborative process. But if you look at in terms of contribution to the collaboration:
Lucas concieved the project.He designed the story and created it's characters.He envisioned it's enviroment and designated it's tonality.
He directed the actors and edited the footage aswell as creating and galvanizing(along with Kurtz) the effects crew.
Kurtz's contributions are less voluminous(but still significant) with regards to Star wars.
But there would be no Star Wars without Lucas-wheras there would be a Star Wars(and was) without Kurtz(although less good).
Obviously not, but, then, you can hardly aspire for a movie to be a certain
way when you have nothing to go on. It'd be pretty crazy to enter a film and say "Gee, I sure hope a major character dies".
We, on the other hand, have had many years to consider this and also interviews, behind the scenes knowledge, drafts and other details to form our opinions on.
Well on that basis we could subject any film or work of art to that premise.
There are parts of Lawrence Of Arabia,2001,Citizen Kane and The Godfather or even Episode IV or V that could have been done different (or better) with the benefit of those factors that you mentioned above.
Hell Adywans version of Star Wars is proof of that!