Up to the director?

7/18/98

In yesterday’s update, I mentioned a quote by George Lucas about the DVD version of the Star Wars films. Thanks to the efforts of Bits reader Grant Peterson, I’m happy to present the exact quote to you now. It’s an excerpt from the article An Expanded Universe: Digital and analog special effects collide in the retooled version of Star Wars by Ron Magid, originally published in the February 1997 issue of American Cinematographer. There can be no doubt, that it reveals that Lucas was already thinking in terms of DVD, even as the format was just about to find its way to consumers. Here’s the excerpt:

“Occasionally, [you can] go back and get your cut of the video out there, which I did with on both American Graffiti and THX-1138; that’s the place where it will live forever. So what ends up being in my mind is what the DVD version is going to look like, because that’s what everybody is going to remember. The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s, to go back and reinvent a movie.”

Source

Okay. The first time I saw this quote I thought it referred to the 2004 version, but it actually refers to the 1997 Special Edition and was published in February 1997 (7 years before the DVD version was released).

One thing has always struck me about this quote. “I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s, to go back and reinvent a movie.”

That’s fair enough in and of itself, and as I understand it Lucas got permission from Kershner to make the special edition changes to Empire. The most substantial changes were improving the quality of the optical composites. But Lucas was calling the shots and he isn’t the director, he’s the Exec Producer - the ‘studio’. He did it with the permission of the director, yes, but Kershner didn’t come to him and say “I wish to make changes to Empire”.

Then in 2004 we learned that Lucas went and made further changes to Empire without any involvement or knowledge from the director. We know this because Kershner said this in a magazine interview:

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.

Who’s idea was it to add a CGI shot of the approach to cloud city?*
Who’s idea was it to add an outake shot of Vader from Jedi to Empire?*
So who replaced Hologram Palpatine, and gave him different lines to say then? Was that the director?
Who removed the director-approved scream Luke makes?

*Yes these are made in the supposed director-approved version, but Kershner is unaware of them - he says he made “no cut changes”.

When we get to Return of the Jedi it’s a whole ‘nother matter. Marquand died in 1987, so we only have Lucas’ vague word that he wanted changes made to Jedi for re-release. However, he was dead. He didn’t make any changes, he didn’t approve any changes. He didn’t have the opportunity to oversee the changes made for the 1997 SE the way that Kershner did.

So who’s idea was it to replace the Sarlacc pit with a Sarlacc creature?
Who’s idea was it to add Hayden Christensen?
Who’s idea was it to remove the Yub Nub song and add pictures from SW planets that Marquand knew nothing about?
And who’s idea was it to digitally erase Anakin’s eyebrows and make endless other CGI changes?

Were these really the director’s ideas, or, were they merely the studio’s ideas? The ideas of the Executive Producer?

As I said in some other thread, Lucas was the primary author of both ESB and ROTJ. While directors were basically hired hands to handle principal photography phase.

I am not saying the changes to the films were good. I am just saying that primary author should be the one making special editions. While in many cases director is the primary author of the film, it wasn’t the case in ESB and ROTJ.

imperialscum said:

As I said in some other thread, Lucas was the primary author of both ESB and ROTJ. While directors were basically hired hands to handle principal photography phase.

I am not saying the changes to the films were good. I am just saying that primary author should be the one making special editions. While in many cases director is the primary author of the film, it wasn’t the case in ESB and ROTJ.

Of course they’re hired hands - that’s the whole point. Lucas isn’t the director of those films, or the primary screenplay writer either. He’s the producer. Yes in a way producers are essentially the “primary author”, that’s certainly the case where they take over final cut of the film, impose changes, approve script rewrites, approve sets and costumes, approve casting decisions, etc.

Kershner says in the same interview I quoted from in the OP this:

I turned it down. I told him, “I don’t know anything about special effects.” But he said, “You don’t have to. You think up anything you want and it’s up to Industrial Light and Magic to make it work.” Now, I don’t know of anyone else who could have said that, but he owns the company. So I’d ask for the most impossible shots, and they would do it.

It is clear the director had wide creative control. Perhaps even moreso than most producers would give to directors in mainstream Hollywood films of the time.

No, typically producers aren’t the primary authors of the film. Typically a director is the primary author (especially when acting as a co-writer). However in case of OT, Lucas was the primary creative director. He basically came up with the main ideas (story, characters, concepts, etc.), he co-wrote screenplay and oversaw the the rest of the writing, he worked with conceptual artists (McQuarrie, Johnston, etc.) to put his ideas into reality and worked with the editors to make the final cut. Basically the hired directors had control over principal photography, i.e. directing actors and crew to realise the scenes, which is exactly what they were hired for. In case of ROTJ Lucas was interfering with Marquands work during principal photography, which makes me wonder why he hired him in the first place.

imperialscum said:

No, typically producers aren’t the primary authors of the film. Typically a director is the primary author (especially when acting as a co-writer). However in case of OT, Lucas was the primary creative director. He basically came up with the main ideas (story, characters, concepts, etc.), he co-wrote screenplay and oversaw the the rest of the writing, he worked with conceptual artists (McQuarrie, Johnston, etc.) to put his ideas into reality and worked with the editors to make the final cut. Basically the hired directors had control over principal photography, i.e. directing actors and crew to realise the scenes, which is exactly what they were hired for. In case of ROTJ Lucas was interfering with Marquands work during principal photography, which makes me wonder why he hired him in the first place.

So would this mean that JK Rowling has the right to go through the Harry Potter film series and impose changes - even changers that the directors of those films don’t agree to?

RU.08 said:

So would this mean that JK Rowling has the right to go through the Harry Potter film series and impose changes - even changers that the directors of those films don’t agree to?

I don’t have any clue about Harry Potter films. If she co-wrote screenplays, worked with concept art designers to visualise the ideas and dictated the final cut, then yes.

To Tobar

I have read all those interviews and they seem cute and all, but judging from some of the actual transcripts of the meetings (published in “Making of” books) it was more like: someone suggested something, then Lucas explained “no it cannot be that way because <insert reason>”.

DominicCobb said:

Up to the director or not doesn’t really matter. The studio or producers can do whatever they want with a film as long as they don’t suppress the original version. Same goes for the director. Lucas had no right to suppress Star Wars even though he directed it.

Yes. The point is not whether they should get an approval by some hired actor director. The real point is that the original versions should not be suppressed by anyone.

towne32 said:

This one was at least apparently in the original concept art. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an awful change and it looks like a circa 1997 video game graphics. The original was one of those cases where technical limitations led to a ‘less is more’ effect, as with Jaws. But, the change does seem to be something originally intended, as opposed to the cases where Lucas is more likely lying.

Well changes get made between concept art and the final thing all the time don’t they? The concept art is often how it would look if it was a comic-book instead of a live-action-movie. I’m not saying Lucas is lying, but what he originally intended and what the director of the film originally intended might have been two different things.

Lucas has always claimed he “originally intended” to insert a stop-motion puppet as Jabba in SW. But everything about that scene tells us he didn’t - even without the lighting issues, there’s no way to insert a puppet into that scene using compositing. He has Jabba and Han walking together and closely interacting, and where he claims that the ILM effect was abandoned due to budget and time constraints, there was no way to ever put a special effect in that shot until the Special Edition. This points to the decision to abandoning the shot being made before they finished shooting it - otherwise the completed sequence would contain shots where Han and Jaba are far enough apart to make super-imposing a puppet-creature feasible, and probably close-up shots where you don’t need to see them both all the time to make it easier. This is more consistent with Gary Kurtz’s account who seemed to have no idea that a special-effect creature would be coming for that shot. He says the scene was abandoned for technical reasons (camera and lighting) and that the decision was made at the time of shooting, so they just added some dialogue to the Greedo scene to cover it:

Yes, because of the focus problems, and it was slightly redundant anyway because some of the information was already in the Greedo scene, so why not make all the information in the Greedo scene and eliminate the Jabba scene altogether? That’s what happened.

In all accounts though, the slug-concept for Jabba is not made until Jedi.

But if we consider Kershner’s interview - that appears to be from 2004 (or possibly 2003) - he is not anticipating any further changes to be made for DVD. And he was consulted for the 1997 version. He also referred to Empire as “his” movie, and said that he didn’t want to direct Jedi because he didn’t like the plot of the film. He was very candid in that interview, he was very respectful to GL and co, but was firm and clear about the issues he commented on.

What we have from the 1997 Lucas interview is a different justification for the changes than he could have made in 2004. If pressed on the question about “well why are you making changes to Jedi when involvement from the director is impossible?” Lucas could have answered “well there is Kershner and I and that’s a two-thirds majority for the decision to make a few improvements to the trilogy”. The issue is over what GL and Kershner wanted in terms of “improvements”. Kershner was happy to see technical improvements, but didn’t particularly want the content changed. And as for what Marquand would have wanted is anyone’s guess.

If Lucas had directed the movie instead it would have come out considerably different to how Kershner made it in the first place. How each of the three directors apply concept art as a director is going to be different. I don’t think Lucas will be allowed in the future to make systemic, permanent, changes to TFA or the other new SW films. But I suppose only time will tell.