That's interesting when compared to this interview with Marquand:
"I fit the bill in that it seemed like they were looking for a younger man who has a great deal of experience, can work hard and fast, make up his mind and stick to it, and run a crew very quickly," he explains. "I knew then what George was searching for was not the old school movie director who would wait for the weather to get the shot he wanted. He wanted someone who could improvise, think on his feet."
"When we met, I felt extremely comfortable. It was one filmmaker talking to another filmmaker. It was very good," he says. "We talked about our films and how we dealt with certain problems. It was not in any sense an interview or the kind of thing that happens in Hollywood where you must put on a tremendous performance to impress somebody.
"I told George that, if I was going to direct this adequately, I would need loyalty and support in the areas that were new to me," Marquand says. "In a way, being the director of a film of this size is rather like being the President of the Ford Motor Company. You don't necessarily have to know how to weld a car door, but you must make damn sure the guy who is doing it for you is someone you know, that you know his skills and that he'll do a good job."
The Star Wars galaxy really does belong to George Lucas, the man who conceived the cosmos, but retired from actually directing the films. As producer, he wields a great deal of power, but on Jedi, Richard Marquand was the man in charge.
"If you are the director," Marquand says, "you are really the man who says what goes. There are always stories in the movie industry about directors getting pushed around by producers. But, all those producers are people who really don't understand how movies get made. You can only really have one person doing that job. The good thing about George Lucas is he knows that fact."
Marquand leans forward on his desk and plays with a pen. "All you can do is tell the story your way, the best that you can. I must say I like the way George made Star Wars, the way he set it up and did it was extremely clever. He made it seem to have a very simple surface, but, in fact, it had a very dense, complex background to it.
"I preferred that surface naiveté to the much more sophisticated way [Irvin] Kershner told his story. His style very much suited this rather more dark, metallic second section of the saga. I think this third segment has a different kind of glow and flavor to it. But, I tried to make it simple because the textures in Jedi are so very, very complex. There's a world of new people and some of them are incredibly difficult to appreciate at first meeting."
Full Interview