Star wars v.s Star trek

ive always been a die hard starwars fan but when i was younger i used to watch star trekk voyager..but the next generation was a little to uch for me..but as we all know star wars ddestroyes the trekk...

Seriously!  It's like trying to compare Jonagold apples to Honeycrisp apples.  No comparison!

Culturally, with the collapse of Star Trek financially, has lead to some awesome fan reworkings.  DayJobOrchestra's for instance: (NSFW) [Mental paralysis suggested]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNKqJiMfkUs

Seems to have peaked though, coinciding with the RLM reviews, and those other edits, which I can't remember the creators names.

I like Star Wars, and I like Star Trek.  Why is that a problem, exactly?

I like them both. Mostly the original series and next gen.   As a whole star wars is better but star trek is great also.  Star trek two the wrath of khan os right up there with empire strikes back in terms of  a great  sequel.  Not quite as good but a close 2nd place.

Empire strikes back is perfect in every way. Funny how  the film Lucas had almost nothing to do with is hailed as the best starwars film and  voted the 2nd best sequel of all time    2nd only to the godfather  part 2  by the american motion picture institute.

Irvin kershner said lucas was on the set maybe 2 times during the entire filming and that Lucas gave him  free reign to do what he wanted. Gary Kurtz also said  that Lucas was a bit upset that  kershner  wasnot the type of director to let him phne in and give ideas  for him to follow and that is why he hired richerd  MQ to do return of the jedi. He said  for  episode 6  lucas would just call in and tell richered what to do  and in many ways  return of the jedi     basiclly was directed by lucas in that sense. that started the downhill spiral. kurtz said by that time lucas  changed his mind on the direction he wanted to take the series  and that he  was more  forcused on selling toys  than making a quality film.  hence the ewoks and the 2nd death star..which  kurtz said was just a rehash of  a new hope  with better special effects.

Has anyone here ever read the original script for return of the jedi before lucas changed it? its really good.much better than the final take.  Obi wan and yoda and Luke fight the emperor and darth vader.

I thought the earliest available draft of Jedi was the one Lucas himself wrote, where there are not one, but two new Death Stars.

hERE IS A   BIT OF THE SCRIPT  titled   revised rough  draft revenge of the jedi  june 12 1981

13. INT. TATOOINE INN

["In the rough draft Luke is asleep and struggling with thoughts of Vader and the dark side. Yoda and Ben are also present in the dream, and Luke berates Ben for not telling him that Vader is his father. Yoda explains that he'll soon be joining Ben in the Netherworld, and therefore he'll become stronger and will be better able to help Luke. Vader's voice reappears, and Luke awakens." -L. Bouzerau, explanation from Star Wars The Annotated Screenplays page 241.]

Luke snaps awake from a sound sleep, his head still ringing with Vader’s words. It takes a moment for him to focus on his surroundings. He is in a small rundown, tavern. Two vile, little dirty Jawas; ATETU and TWEETU, stare at him from across the room. They shake their cloak-covered heads and go back to cooking an odorous stew.

The howling wind outside blows the door open with a loud crash. Luke reaches for his pistol, the Jawas hide. Out of the dust cloud emerge two familiar shapes, SEE THREEPIO and ARTOO DETOO. Luke relaxes as the angry Jawas come out of hiding, scolding the robots for not closing the door. Atetu waddles to the door and strains against the wind to close it.

84. VADER’S PRIVATE CHAMBER – STAR DESTROYER

The door to the private chamber slides open, and the Dark Lord of the Sith storms into the room. His voice echoes through the chamber.

VADER
Jerjerrod!

JERJERROD
(V.O.)
It is not necessary to shout, my old friend.

VADER
What is the Emperor doing with my son…

JERJERROD
My Lord Vader, the Emperor does not have to answer to you… besides, I don’t believe he has your son. Where did you come by this piece of erroneous information?

VADER
He’s been seen at the palace…and that’s where I’m going!

JERJERROD
The Emperor would prefer you didn’t…you would go against his wishes. The Rebel attack is about to begin. You are truly fearless, my old friend.

Vader lifts the Grand Moff by the neck and begins to lift him off the ground with one hand; Jerjerrod gasps for air and struggles to free himself from the Dark Lord’s iron grip.

VADER
You are not my friend, bureaucrat. I will go to the palace, but you will not live to see it. I no longer wish to be annoyed by your simpering ways.

JERJERROD
The Emperor will destroy you for this.

Vader snaps the man’s neck, and he drops to the floor in a heap.

VADER
I think not…your importance has been greatly exaggerated.

Vader exits the room, and the door slams shut behind him.

85. EXT. SPACE – REBEL FLEET

BEN
Yoda will always be with you.

Luke looks up to see the shimmering image of BEN KENOBI.

LUKE
Obi-Wan! Why didn't you tell me?

The ghost of Ben Kenobi approaches him through the swamp.

LUKE
You told me Vader betrayed
and murdered my father.

BEN
You father was seduced by the dark
side of the Force. He ceased to be
Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader.
When that happened, the good man
who was your father was destroyed.
So what I have told you was true...
from a certain point of view.

LUKE (turning away, derisive)
A certain point of view!

BEN
Luke, you're going to find that many
of the truths we cling to depend greatly
on our own point of view.

Luke is unresponsive. Ben studies him in silence for a moment.

BEN
I don't blame you for being angry.
If I was wrong in what I did, it
certainly wouldn't have been for the first time.
You see, what happened to your
father was my fault.

Ben pauses sadly.

BEN
Anakin was a good friend.

Luke turns with interest at this. As Ben speaks, Luke settles on a stump, mesmerized. Artoo comes over to offer his comforting presence.

BEN
When I first knew him, your father
was already a great pilot. But I was
amazed how strongly the Force was with him.
I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi.
I thought that I could instruct him just
as well as Yoda. I was wrong.
My pride has had terrible
consequences for the galaxy.

Luke is entranced.

LUKE
There's still good in him.

BEN
I also thought he could be turned
back to the good side. It couldn't be done.
He is more machine now than man.
Twisted and evil.

LUKE
I can't do it, Ben.

BEN
You cannot escape
your destiny.

LUKE
I tried to stop him once.
I couldn't do it.

BEN
Vader humbled you when first you
met him, Luke...but that experience was
part of your training. It taught you,
among other things, the value of
patience. Had you not been so impatient
to defeat Vader then, you could have
finished your training here with Yoda.
You would have been prepared.

LUKE
But I had to help my friends.

BEN (grinning at Luke's indignation)
And did you help them?
It was they who had to save you.
You achieved little by rushing back
prematurely, I fear.

LUKE
(with sadness)
I found out Darth Vader
was my father.

BEN
To be a Jedi, Luke, you must confront
and then go beyond the dark side -
the side your father couldn't get past.
Impatience is the easiest door - for you,
like your father. Only, your father was seduced
by what he found on the other side of
the door, and you have held firm.
You're no longer so reckless now, Luke.
You are strong and patient. And now,
you must face Darth Vader again!

LUKE
I can't kill my own father.

BEN
Then the Emperor has already won.
You were our only hope.

LUKE
Yoda spoke of another.

BEN
The other he spoke of
is your twin sister.

LUKE
But I have no sister.

BEN
Hmm. To protect you both from the Emperor,
you were hidden from your father when
you were born. The Emperor knew, as I did,
if Anakin were to have any offspring, they
would be a threat to him. That is the reason
why your sister remains safely anonymous.

LUKE
Leia! Leia's my sister.

BEN
Your insight serves you well.
Bury your feelings deep down, Luke.
They do you credit. But they
could be made to serve the Emperor.

Luke looks into the distance, trying to comprehend all this.

BEN
(continuing his narrative)
When your father left, he didn't know
your mother was pregnant. Your mother
and I knew he would find out eventually,
but we wanted to keep you both as safe
as possible, for as long as possible.
So I took you to live with my brother
Owen on Tatooine... and your mother took
Leia to live as the daughter of
Senator Organa, on Alderaan.

Luke turns, and settles near Ben to hear the tale.

BEN
(attempting to give solace with his words)
The Organa household was high-born
and politically quite powerful in that system.
Leia became a princess by virtue of lineage...
no one knew she'd been adopted, of course.
But it was a title without real power,
since Alderaan had long been a democracy.
Even so, the family continued to be politically
powerful, and Leia, following in her foster
father's path, became a senator as well.
That's not all she became, of course...
she became the leader of her cell in the
Alliance against the corrupt Empire.
And because she had diplomatic immunity,
she was a vital link for getting information to
the Rebel cause. That's what she was doing
when her path crossed yours... for her foster
parents had always told her to contact
me on Tatooine, if her
troubles became desperate.

Luke is overwhelmed by the truth, and is suddenly protective of his sister.

LUKE
But you can't let her get involved
now, Ben. Vader will destroy her.

BEN
She hasn't been trained in the ways
of the Jedi the way you have, Luke...
but the Force is strong with her,
as it is with all of your family.
There is no avoiding the battle.
You must face and destroy Vader!

88. HAD ABBADON – THE TOMB’S PRISON

Luke lies unconscious on a small island in the middle of a hot lava lake. A hot wind blows across his face and wakes him. He looks around at his hostile surroundings and suddenly becomes aware of another person sitting behind him. He turns on the intruder with Jedi speed. The shrouded figure doesn’t move or even look up.

LUKE
Ben…

Slowly, the hooded figure looks up, revealing his face. It is Ben Kenobi in the flesh.

BEN
I could no longer stay in the netherworld.

LUKE
But Yoda said…

BEN
…that I would become one with the Force and choose not to return to the material world? That your anger prevented me from…

LUKE
But I’m not angry…not anymore…I understand why you didn’t tell me about my father. I do.

BEN
I know. And I am here to help you destroy the Emperor, and…your father.

LUKE
I can’t.

Suddenly Yoda appears beside Ben.

YODA
You can and you will…I in the netherworld, and Obi-Wan at your side. Help you we will.

96. INT. MAIN HALLWAY TO THRONE ROOM

Vader’s footsteps echo through the vast, long hallway. The Royal Guards that line the walls watch him with great fear. Finally he reaches the massive doors that open on to the throne room. The two guards on either side of the doors move to block the Dark Lord.

1ST GUARD
I’m sorry Lord Vader, the Emperor does not wish…

Both of the guards are stopped in their tracks as they drop their weapons and grab for their throats in a vain attempt to breathe. They drop gasping to the floor as the giant doors slide open and the Dark Lord enters the Emperor’s chamber.

97. INT. THRONE ROOM – HAD ABBADON

Vader storms into the throne room and marches right up to where the Emperor is sitting. The Emperor slowly raises his head to stare at the Dark Lord.

VADER
Where is he?

EMPEROR
Safe…There is no need for you to worry. I will take good care of him…

VADER
It is for me to train my son…you must…

The Emperor raises his hand, and Vader’s breathing suddenly stops. The Dark Lord struggles at his controls, attempting to regain his air supply. He chokes.

EMPEROR
You forget yourself…Lord Vader. I will tolerate no more discussion on the subject. The boy is mine to train. Your place is with the fleet.

Vader collapses on the floor and the Emperor lowers his hand. Vader starts breathing again and rises to a kneeling position.

VADER
Forgive me, master.

EMPEROR
The Rebels will soon begin their attack. You must be ready for them. For now that I have all of them in one place, they will be crushed once and for all.

VADER
Yes, my master.

EMPEROR
Now take your leave, for I have your son to attend to.

Vader rises and exits the throne room, and the giant door slides closed behind him.

12. INT. HAD ABBADON – TOMB’S DUNGEON

Luke stands with a start and begins to look around. Ben slowly stands also.

LUKE
Did you feel that?

BEN
Yes. It’s the Emperor. He’s moving this way…

LUKE
…and so is my father.

BEN
He is following the Emperor. Yoda!

YODA’S VOICE
I am between them and the Force…cloud their minds, I will.

BEN
Luke, you must take them on one at a time. Together, they will destroy you…

The Emperor enters the cavern and looks across to the boiling lava lake. He sees Ben and is surprised.

EMPEROR
So you are not dead after all, Obi-Wan. I thought I felt your presence in the netherworld. So, you have returned. But you have failed…the boy is mine, and will soon embrace the Dark Side.

YODA
It is you who have failed, my old friend.

The Emperor turns around to see the shimmering image of Yoda standing before him.

EMPEROR
You!

YODA
Evil one, this will be the last day of your existence.

EMPEROR
Your presence in the netherworld can do me no harm. And neither can this boy or this old man.

YODA
Your fear is strong…overestimate your abilities, you do.

Vader steps out of the shadows and stands next to the Emperor.

VADER
My Master, they must be destroyed. Now it is too late to turn the boy.

Luke looks at his father, then reaches out and Vader’s lasersword leaps off the Dark Lord’s belt and into the young Jedi’s hand. Luke ignites the lasersword as the Emperor pulls a sword out of his sleeve and tosses it to Vader.

EMPEROR
Destroy them.

Vader’s sword ignites and he starts to move toward his son. Luke backs away.

120. INT. HAD ABBADON – TOMB’S DUNGEON

Vader brings his lasersword down hard on his son, but Luke is able to block his father’s blow. A quick sword exchange, and Luke forces Vader back. Another exchange, and the Dark Lord recovers, pushing the young Jedi onto a small rock surrounded by the bubbling pool of lava. Ben and the Emperor watch from the far side of the cavern.

EMPEROR
He is every inch his father.

BEN
He is stronger than you imagine, and has many allies.

EMPEROR
Allies? If they are all as you, I have no concern. Once the boy has killed his father, I will have him destroy you…

BEN
Perhaps, but it will not save you. I have foreseen your death at the hands of Skywalker.

EMPEROR
But I have not, therefore it cannot be.

BEN
Unless you can no longer see…

Luke fights back with all of his strength and drives his father back across the tiny rocks. A crashing blow by Luke causes Vader to lose his balance and fall onto one of the small rock islands, his sword hand landing in the molten lava. His sword and part of his metal are melting away. Vader backs away from his son, expecting the death blow at any moment. But Luke hesitates as Ben and the Emperor watch.

EMPEROR
Finish it, boy! It is the power of the Dark Side that you feel…

Luke lowers his lasersword.

LUKE
I cannot. I will not turn to the Dark Side. I only fight in self-defense, not to do your Emperor’s bidding.

With that, Luke extinguishes the lasersword and tosses it to Ben.

LUKE
If he is to be destroyed, you must do it.

131. INT. HAD ABBADON – TOMB’S DUNGEON

Lord Vader struggles to stand as Ben prods the Emperor onto the same small island. Luke stands behind Ben and watches.

EMPEROR
You have become old and weak, Lord Vader. I will take care of this.

The Emperor turns his back on Vader and faces the old Jedi, raising his hands in the air, which causes lightning to strike at Ben.

LUKE
BEN, NO!

Luke leaps in front of his mentor, and raises his hand in defense. The bolts are deflected by an invisible shield. Wherever a bolt hits, the image of Yoda momentarily appears at the point of impact.

EMPEROR
Your Master in the netherworld cannot protect you for long. You will turn to me or die.

The lightning bolts become more intense, and Ben is knocked unconscious. Luke drops to his knees under the pressure.

EMPEROR
This is the power of the Dark Side that you deny. Your strength will never match it.

Luke struggles to remain conscious against the superior power of the Emperor.

LUKE
Yoda…

EMPEROR
Obi-Wan foresaw my destruction at your hands, young Skywalker, but it seems his vision was clouded…Perhaps there is still another Skywalker. Why can I not see, could the netherworld have influenced my perception? Another Skywalker…your father!

The Emperor turns around to see Lord Vader flying at him. The lightning bolts around Luke disappear as Vader hits the Emperor, knocking them both into the fiery lake of lava. The hideous screams of the Emperor are soon muted. Luke struggles to his feet and stares at the spot where his enemy and his father disappeared into the cauldron of molten rock.

Ben puts his hand on the young Jedi’s shoulder.

BEN
It is in Yoda’s hands now.

["In the rough draft…Ben explains that…if Vader becomes one with the dark side of the Force, he will lose all identity. If he turns to the good side, he will pass through the Netherworld and" in the revised rough draft, Yoda "will rescue him before he becomes one with the Force." -L. Bouzerau, explanation from Star Wars The Annotated Screenplays page 300.]

LUKE
He turned back to the good side.

BEN
Yes, he did.

http://starwarz.com/starkiller/category/star-wars-scripts/return-of-the-jedi-star-wars-scripts/

Revenge of the Jedi Revised Rough Draft

Written by George Lucas
82 pages
139 Scenes
Jun 12, 1981

haljordan28 said:

*one of the longest posts on the forum ever*

You owe me a new click wheel.

Anyway, I'm confused by the thread title.  What is "v.s" supposed to mean?

Yep, as None said, that's a draft written entirely by Lucas, which directly contradicts what you said about said draft:

Has anyone here ever read the original script for return of the jedi before lucas changed it?

The answer to this is no, because such a draft never existed.

I never  said  Lucas did not write it.I said before Lucas changed it.  Gary Kurtz said   it  was about that time that Lucas ideas and direction changed from what he and kurtz planed to do with the frnachise and  lucas got more motivated   by selling toys  and mass appeal    and he rewrote  return of the jedi completly  from what  they had originally planed for it.  if you want a link to the gary kurtz interview ill post it.  as isaid  lucas wrote that script  but that is before he changed everything

haljordan28 said:

it  was about that time that Lucas ideas and direction changed from what he and kurtz planed to do with the frnachise and  lucas got more motivated   by selling toys  and mass appeal    and he rewrote  return of the jedi completly  from what  they had originally planed for it.

 Sheesh. That George Lucas being motivated by mass appeal! What a shmoe!

I wish he has stuck to the grim and depressing vision he put out in "Star Wars." That bleak and unappealing film uncompromisingly showed the viewing audience the bitter truths of life. It was an unflinching look at ennui and lonliness that will never be matched.

I can't beleive he sold out for ROTJ and added cute robots, funny aliens, swashbuckling action, and a fairy tale ending. Those totally don't match the original intent of ANH.

Please post links, then quote out the relevant parts.  This way if someone wants to they can go read the full article.

I don't think the Lucas/Kurtz rift was as abrupt as you make it out to be.  From the Making of ESB book, you get the sense that both Lucas and Kurtz felt that for ESB to be successful that they needed to up the quality, so Kurtz continued with that throughout production, while Lucas was watching his own bank account dwindle and came to the conclusion that Kurtz was giving the production team too much leeway.  This is one aspect which became a rift.  And along this way, the two of them are planning out the other episodes, don't know when Kurtz exactly left LFL camp, was it prior to the first RotJ script or somewhere during pre-production?  So when Kurtz talks about what he thought RotJ was going to be (Luke going off into the sunset for instance) when this idea was briefed would be interesting to speculate on.

haljordan28 said:

I never  said  Lucas did not write it.I said before Lucas changed it.  Gary Kurtz said   it  was about that time that Lucas ideas and direction changed from what he and kurtz planed to do with the frnachise and  lucas got more motivated   by selling toys  and mass appeal    and he rewrote  return of the jedi completly  from what  they had originally planed for it.  if you want a link to the gary kurtz interview ill post it.  as isaid  lucas wrote that script  but that is before he changed everything

The plan for Star Wars III that you refer to was worked out between Lucas and Kurtz during the making of Empire (I'll refer to it as the Lucas/Kurtz outline).  It was thrown out before any scripts were written, by Lucas or anyone else, as Lucas was dissatisfied with how Empire had turned out.

The script you're talking about was written after Lucas had already trashed his initial plans for Jedi.  Yeah, it still changed quite a bit from that draft to the final version, but so did Star Wars and Empire.  Read the first drafts of each of those some time.  This draft - the one you posted excerpts from - I'll call the Lucas draft.

So, how does the Lucas/Kurtz outline compare to the Lucas draft?  For example, in the Lucas/Kurtz outline - from the mouth of Gary Kurtz himself (probably in the same link you were talking about):

• There was no Death Star at all - in the Lucas draft, there are two
• Han Solo died heroically in the climactic battle, sacrificing himself so the Rebels could win - in the Lucas draft, he's alive at the end
• Luke's sister was not Leia - in fact, he went in search of his real sister at the end of the film, setting up a sequel trilogy.  In the Lucas draft, Leia is Luke's sister, as in the final film.
• There were no Ewoks in the Kurtz/Lucas outline, while Ewoks are definitely present in the Lucas draft.
• Leia was crowned Queen at the end of the Lucas/Kurtz outline, left alone to lead the new government now that Han was dead and Luke was traveling through the galaxy in search of his sister.  Obviously, none of this is present in the Lucas draft.

Basically, my point is, the Kurtz/Lucas outline you're talking about was never taken to the script stage, and the Lucas script you posted excerpts from contains many of the poor decisions that made Jedi vastly inferior to the first two films.

In fact, I'll wager that the initial draft of Star Wars and the initial draft of Empire are both more drastically different from their final films than the Lucas draft of Jedi is different from the finished film.  (Hope that sentence makes sense.)

ChainsawAsh said:

• There was no Death Star at all - in the Lucas draft, there are two
• Han Solo died heroically in the climactic battle, sacrificing himself so the Rebels could win - in the Lucas draft, he's alive at the end
• Luke's sister was not Leia - in fact, he went in search of his real sister at the end of the film, setting up a sequel trilogy.  In the Lucas draft, Leia is Luke's sister, as in the final film.
• There were no Ewoks in the Kurtz/Lucas outline, while Ewoks are definitely present in the Lucas draft.
• Leia was crowned Queen at the end of the Lucas/Kurtz outline, left alone to lead the new government now that Han was dead and Luke was traveling through the galaxy in search of his sister.  Obviously, none of this is present in the Lucas draft. 

It's a damn shame that those ideas didn't end up in the final film...

Wasn't this thread once about "Star Wars vs. Star Trek"?

TML said:

Wasn't this thread once about "Star Wars vs. Star Trek"?

Nope.  Read the thread title closer.

TV's Frink said:

TML said:

Wasn't this thread once about "Star Wars vs. Star Trek"?

Nope.  Read the thread title closer.

 Oh, silly me. It's about "Star wars v.s Star trek"... I'm sorry if I caused any confusion there, I will proceed to punishing myself by whip for my actions.

^Sounds reasonable.

ChainsawAsh said:

haljordan28 said some things:

The plan for Star Wars III that you refer to was worked out between Lucas and Kurtz during the making of Empire (I'll refer to it as the Lucas/Kurtz outline).  It was thrown out before any scripts were written, by Lucas or anyone else, as Lucas was dissatisfied with how Empire had turned out.

...

In fact, I'll wager that the initial draft of Star Wars and the initial draft of Empire are both more drastically different from their final films than the Lucas draft of Jedi is different from the finished film.  (Hope that sentence makes sense.)

It's tough enough to keep of the real drafts of the scripts let alone some story conference ideas that never made it to paper.  

Thanks Chainsaw!  I ought to go back and reread Zombie's book.

I hate Kurtz's dream plan. It's like every sullen teenagers' version of Star Wars circa 1992. We don't believe in nuthin' man.

Also I think all that vague spitballing he talks about pre-dates the actual writing of the Empire screenplay.

I think the original direction was to have Luke start as ignorant of even the existence of the Force and eventual move up through difficult trials until he was in the position to train his sister in much the same way young Obi-Wan would have trained Vader and then would come the uncertainty as to if he would make the same mistakes or not and lead to the fall of the Empire or making it even stronger.

The whole literal resurrection of Ben and Yoda business was a bit too weird and took away from Luke being the main focus of his own character arc but something had to happen to push Luke away from the comfort zone of the trinity of Luke, Leia and Han to further push his character up to the next level.

It is odd however how much Leia being Luke's sister retroactively makes sense (probably more than Vader being his dad to be honest even with the kissing).

Did all the Trek get chased out of this topic?

I was an SW fan a lot earlier, but I met a Trekker in middle school and got caught watching reruns of TOS on the Pre-Y Scifi Channel.

Pretty much the worst part of Trek is when they do technobabble plots, which turned me off of late Voyager episodes. Also the occasional preachiness and self-righteousness that especially the TNG-era shows had. But the old movies were fun and the new reboot was harmless enough.

To be honest I rarely found myself enjoying TNG, half greek salad and half soap opera and aliens that wouldn't look out of place in Lost In Space.

Q said :

Seven years ago, I said we'd be watching you, and we have been - hoping that your ape-like race would demonstrate *some* growth, give *some* indication that your minds had room for expansion. But what have we seen instead? You, worrying about Commander Riker's career. Listening to Counselor Troi's pedantic psychobabble. Indulging Data in his witless exploration of humanity. 

IGNFF: From your personal experience, how would you compare the George you worked with on American Graffiti to the George you worked with towards the end of The Empire Strikes Back?

KURTZ: It was quite different, actually. He was very different. I think the most unfortunate thing that happened was the fact that Indiana Jones came along, and Raiders of the Lost Ark had come out in between. George and I had many, many discussions about that, but it boiled down to the fact that he became convinced that all the audience was interested in was the roller-coaster ride, and so the story and the script didn't matter anymore.

Now Raiders is not a bad film, but the script actually was much better than the finished film. There were a lot more nuances in the character, and there was less action. It would've been a better picture if that script had been made. But, as it is, it's an interesting and entertaining film – it's just that this idea that somehow the energy doesn't have to be put into getting really good story elements together. One of the arguments that I had with George about Empire was the fact that he felt in the end, he said, we could have made just as much money if the film hadn't been quite so good, and you hadn't spent so much time. And I said, "But it was worth it!"

GNFF: Now, also the story has arisen that George had always intended prequels, but had never intended sequels to that initial three films.

KURTZ: After this idea of more films came up, he did several interviews where he said he had story material to do nine films – three prequels and three sequels. That was the accepted story, basically, and there was quite a bit of material both before and after the Star Wars lump. So there was no decision to do either one... it was kind of a red herring in a way, because there was no immediate thought to make any other films right away. In a sense, through a business point of view, it probably would have been better to do so, like they did with Star Trek, rather than wait all this time, because the audience interest dissipated somewhat. I mean, it didn't seem to affect the box office on Phantom Menace too much, but ...

IGNFF: It didn't exactly leave a good taste in people's mouths, either.

KURTZ: Well, regardless of the value of the film as a film, artistically, there is a kind of energy around some things where if it had come out say three, four years later after Jedi, and then another one three or four years later after that, that kind of cycle would have probably been better for the audience and for the merchandising than what happened. But that's hindsight. At that time, he always said that he had enough material for three earlier films and three later films, to make a total of nine, and there were outlined materials certainly for a later three that culminated with this big clash with the Emperor in Episode IX. So, we'll never see any of those, based on what he's said now.

IGNFF: Well what were the original outlines for the prequels? Since they can be compared and contrasted now that the first one's out there, and the second one's soon to be out there. Were there major differences from what you saw, from the original outlines of prequel ideas?

KURTZ: Well a lot of the prequel ideas were very, very vague. It's really difficult to say. I can't remember much about that at all, except dealing with the Clone Wars and the formation of the Jedi Knights in the first place – that was supposed to be one of the keys of Episode I, was going to be how the Jedi Knights came to be. But all of those notes were abandoned completely. One of the reasons Jedi came out the way it did was because the story outline of how Jedi was going to be seemed to get tossed out, and one of the reasons I was really unhappy was the fact that all of the carefully constructed story structure of characters and things that we did in Empire was going to carry over into Jedi. The resolution of that film was going to be quite bittersweet, with Han Solo being killed, and the princess having to take over as queen of what remained of her people, leaving everybody else. In effect, Luke was left on his own. None of that happened, of course.

IGNFF: So it would have been less of a fairy-tale ending?

KURTZ: Much, much less. It would have been quite sad, and poignant and upbeat at the same time, because they would have won a battle. But the idea of another attack on another Death Star wasn't there at all ... it was a rehash of Star Wars, with better visual effects. And there were no Ewoks ... it was just entirely different. It was much more adult and straightforward, the story. This idea that the roller-coaster ride was all the audience was interested in, and the story doesn't have to be very adult or interesting, seemed to come up because of what happened with Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Indiana Jones films – and the fact that that seemed to make a lot of money and it didn't matter whether there was a really good story or not – that wasn't what this kind of film was about. We had serious differences about a lot of that.

IGNFF: Well it's ironic to me ... I was talking to somebody who has a lot of good friends at ILM, especially in the conceptual department, and he said that George has basically a new catch phrase in the development process. His new catch phrase is "It's good enough," and they say he uses it all the time now. When you're talking about that idea of only going to a certain depth because the audience only wants the quick and easy impact, and then move along.... That somehow the audience isn't observant, so why should we be overly detailed... it's just fascinating to compare that with the observations you made.

IGNFF: When you talk about the development of Star Wars and the transition in tone through Empire and Return of the Jedi and now eventually what happened with Episode I, do you think that George's storytelling became more simplistic, or less mature? How would you characterize the elements that you saw emerging with the difficulties that were happening towards the end of Empire and what eventually led to Return of the Jedi?

KURTZ: I think it became simpler. You don't need complicated interpersonal relationships, you don't need difficult dramatic structures for this kind of story. Empire, in a way, is a typical second act of a three-act play. It's the problem act – everybody has problems, everybody has difficulties that they're trying to get out of, and usually the end of the second act is you're leaving everybody in deep shit. And, in a sense, Empire does that. Luke's hand is cut off, and Han Solo is frozen and he's off somewhere – all of the key elements are left unresolved. It's very rare that you see a feature film that ends that way and is satisfactory.

We were a bit afraid of that whole concept. Knowing that there was going to be a third film obviously helped, but still – that wasn't going to be for another three years, so the idea of presenting this to an audience and having them accept it was a scary proposition. I had never done it before. It seemed to work, though. It seemed to work quite well. The audience was very satisfied, and anticipated the next part. I think part of the reason that they were satisfied was because they were satisfied with the characters themselves. The characters seemed believable in the story.

Star Wars, the first film, is very much a comic book story. It's a very archetypal standard story about a hero coming of age and engaging with the world and trying to right some wrongs – and all of those things worked very, very effectively – but the dialogue is fairly pedestrian as far as movies go, and the adventure is carried along by interesting side bars and some of the individual effects... and the fact that it's kind of a rollercoaster ride in a sense, with very, very archetypal energy, so that you can associate with the key character elements very, very easily.

There's a lot of undercurrent in Star Wars that, if you take it on the surface, a four-year-old can really enjoy it – but there's a lot else going on, under there. In that sense it's multi-layered, and Empire is as well. That's the thing that bothered me a bit about Jedi and certainly about Episode I, is that those layers, those subtexts – they're all gone. They're not there. You accept what's there on the screen – it either works for you as a surface adventure, or it doesn't. But that's all there is. There's nothing to ponder.

IGNFF: No depth.

KURTZ: There's no depth in it. And that's where I think the mistake is. And I'm sorry that it happened that way, because the potential for a lot of that is great – it could have had a lot of depth, without damaging the surface story. The sign of a good movie is one that can work on very, very many levels and, depending on your mood when you go to see it, you can see those, or not, as you want. But it doesn't interfere with your entertainment of it.

IGNFF: How did you observe that change in George, because obviously he was the one who guided it towards that lack of depth...

KURTZ: Well, I think that he felt Empire was an ordeal for him – using his own money, it went over budget and over schedule a bit. Kershner was slow, we had some problems with Mark Hamill who had an injury – typical movie stuff, really. But even though it did cost a little more than was budgeted, there was no way it was ever going to lose money. He really didn't have to worry too much about it – the combination of the merchandising and the distribution would never be a problem.

IGNFF: It was never George's intention to direct Empire?

KURTZ: No, no. After Star Wars, he didn't really want to direct the others. I think he was unhappy that I – I'm the one that recommended Kershner, and had worked with him before. I think he was a good choice for Empire, I think he worked really well, but he wasn't the kind of director... George, I think, had in the back of his mind that the director was a sort of stand-in – that he could phone him up every night and tell him what to do and kind of direct vicariously over the telephone. That never happened. Kershner's not that kind of director, and even when George showed up a couple of times on the set, he found that it wasn't easy to maneuver Kershner into doing what he would have done.

So, on Jedi, he was determined to find a director who was easy to control, basically, and he did. And that was the result, basically – the film was sort of one that George might have directed if he had directed it himself... but maybe not, because it goes through so many interim bits, that if he had directed it probably would have been quite different.

IGNFF: For better or worse?

KURTZ: I think probably for better. But, I don't know, because as I said, he had gotten into this mode of saying that the audience is interested in the rollercoaster ride and that he could make just as much money, and it doesn't have to be complicated, doesn't have to have as difficult a story. There are a lot of other people who do that all the time – that's they're kind of movie making philosophy, the sort of Jerry Bruckheimer approach to movies. A lot of Hollywood movies have been based on the idea that the story is the subtext of the action, so that's certainly nothing new. But it's not very satisfying, I don't think, personally. But, you can make a lot of money, and if that's what you want to do, then you do it that way.

IGNFF: How did the arguments between you and George escalate during Empire?

KURTZ: It was just a matter of trying to get done and he, I suppose, wasn't very good at delegating. Sometimes he would want to control everything, and then other times he would go away and you wouldn't hear from him for a long time. It was difficult to fathom kind of how he approached all that, and he comes out of school doing everything himself – the documentary school where he wrote and directed and shot and edited all by himself, and there's certain feature films you can make that way, and others you can't. He had a good eye, and he's a very good editor, and the films that he directed for the most part have a good visual sense.

With story material, some of the characters were complicated, and the scripts work well. He seemed to work best as a collaborative writer, where other writers came in and had some say in adding certain things so you'd get a variety of point of view, like Willard and Gloria Huyck on American Graffiti. The Huycks also did a polished last draft on Star Wars to add some humor and some edginess to some certain bits, and I think it helped a lot.

IGNFF: Would you say that George tends to be a cold writer, as far as emotional warmth or character depth – we were talking about this as far as American Graffiti, that everything tended to be somewhat sterile as far as George's original drafts of that film.

KURTZ: I think that's probably the case. The other writers tended to add extra elements, especially emotional elements. George tends to write about the facts, in effect.

IGNFF: Very documentarian.

KURTZ: Yes, because that's his background.

IGNFF: At what point did you decide to divorce yourself from the Star Wars process?

KURTZ: Well, it was just the difficulties of finishing Empire, and the fact that – at the very beginning with American Graffiti and with Star Wars, and into the start of Empire – it was a very, very small shop... there were four or five of us in the office, and that was it. Then, in the middle of Empire, we were here in England shooting and George was back in San Francisco working with ILM on visual effects and other things, too. He hired some film people from other companies and started to expand into a much bigger operation... some marketing people, and some merchandising, and people to negotiate in some of the toy deals... and by the end of Empire, it turned into kind of this big organization. Not big necessarily in terms of actual physical numbers – there weren't that many people – but there were enough, and it was an entirely different attitude about everything. That was part of it, and also the fact that I think he blamed me for all the things that were difficult on Empire – a director that was difficult to control, a film that was too expensive, and all those things.

IGNFF: Do you think that he felt he'd outgrown the need for a set of controls... A "no-man"?

KURTZ: I don't know. I don't think we ever talked about it in those terms, but I think that he did chafe a bit under the idea of someone saying "that's not a good idea," some of the time. At the very end of Empire ... we decided at the very last minute – we pretty much locked the picture in the mix and just getting ready to make 70mm prints – and we decided that there had to an extra shot at the very end, to identify this rebel fleet.

If you remember how the end works, it's before you go into the medical department, who are working on Mark's hand. It's the establishing shot of the fleet, and we had a shot already of going into the window and showing Mark inside, and we just decided that it was confusing We didn't know exactly how that was sorted out, so we wanted a long shot at the beginning, and then one at the end that shows the whole fleet when the Falcon flies off. They weren't very difficult to do, and all the ships were there ... just pile up the composites, and they were rushed through, just to get it done. Very last minute. One of them wasn't particularly good, and George said, "Oh well, maybe we should just let it go."

I said, "It's worth at least one more go through. One bad shot can ruin the whole movie, basically." Which I really believe is true, and it just wasn't very good. It was just a compositing problem, had nothing to do with the individual shot elements – I can't even remember what shot it was, now. I think making a movie wears everybody down. You have to be really careful of the decisions you make at the very end, because you can kind of throw a monkey wrench in, very easily.

IGNFF: Just to get it out the door?

KURTZ: Yeah, just to get it done. So, I really don't want to criticize any way of making movies – anybody makes a decision about what they want to make, and they make it, and it goes out there, and the audience is there or it isn't. You can argue for years about the Pauline Kael approach, about whether movies are art or commerce or how much intellectual content you have. One of the things I remember Pauline Kael said quite clearly is that, "The young filmmakers of the '70s mostly didn't have anything to say. They were good technicians and they knew all the tricks, but they didn't have any passions, like some of the filmmakers in the '20s, '30s and '40s did."

Now, whether that's true or not – I don't generally believe in vague generalizations – but, there is a certain amount of truth to that, because a lot of films that have come out since the '70s have been quite shallow. Good looking films, but not much to say. Maybe that's part of the problem, the filmmakers haven't lived enough. Their entire experience is based on old movies, rather than life. As such, they're referential all the time – referential to old movies rather than to life experience. So I suppose the only answer to that is material that isn't that way, material that's written by novelists or screenwriters that have a substantial amount of real life experience and have interesting things to say about various topics.

Anyway, as it relates to Star Wars, the key is that the original Star Wars, and to a great extent Empire, resonated with the audience because there seemed to be something there that appealed to them. Saying something to them that they may not have even noticed – it was subconscious and they wanted to see it, they wanted to be immersed in that experience, to be able to see it several times.

That's one of the reasons the films were so popular. If you think about the fact that Star Wars came out so long ago, when ticket prices were that much cheaper, the reason it made as much money as it did is because people went back to see it many times. There are some infamous stories about people seeing it about two or three hundred times. I'm not sure if that's true or not...

GNFF: You're the person to ask about this – when you're talking about these kind of special editions and changes and are they due to an original vision or changing sensibilities – I have to ask you about your thoughts regarding the infamous redo of the scene with Greedo in the cantina.... the whole shooting first thing.

KURTZ: Yeah, I really was livid about that one. I think it was a total – it ruins the scene, basically. The scene was never intended that way. Han Solo realized that Greedo was out to get him and he had to blast him first or he would lose his life. It shows you how much of a mercenary he is. That's what the point of the scene was. And so the way they've changed it around, it loses the whole impact of that whole aspect of it.

IGNFF: Do you think that's due to George's changing sensibilities as opposed to his argument that, "No, that was my original intention"?

KURTZ: Well, he can say that was his original intention, but we could have shot it that way very easily. There was no reason that it couldn't have been shot that way. It was shot and edited the way it was because that's the way the script was. That's what he wanted at the time.

IGNFF: What is your opinion of why he would try and rationalize it, when he could very well just say, "You know, I just thought nowadays, it's better if he shoots first."

KURTZ: Maybe he just didn't want to say that. Maybe he felt it was a stronger argument to say, "That's what I really wanted to do and I just didn't have time or inclination at the time." You listen to all these directors, they all say that. That's the stock argument ... somehow if they say that, you can't argue with them.

Yes, that's the exact interview I was referring to in my last post.  So everything I said about the Lucas draft stands - it's nothing at all like the Kurtz/Lucas plan.  The earliest screenplay for Jedi - which was written by Lucas - was already after he'd decided the story didn't matter as much as it did for the first two.