I don't remember which thread it was, but someone was talking about how useless the '04 commentaries were, and I said that I hadn't listened to them since '04 (and I haven't even inserted those discs since '06 when the GOUT came out). While it wasn't the best commentary ever, it had been a while, so I decided to check them out. Here are my conclusions:
George Lucas: Torture for the ears. While he'll occasionally say something useful and interesting, 80% of what he says is a complete lie, and I'm amazed he could say some of the things he said with a straight face. And even when he wasn't flat-out lying, he sounded so pompous that I wanted to kick him. I swear if I hear "psychological motifs" come out of his mouth one more time, I'm going to punch someone! Most of his dialogue needed to be excised, plain and simple.
Ben Burtt: I've heard a lot that Burtt is given way too much time to talk, but when you compare him to the Lucas track, at least Burtt has interesting things to say! While most of it is the technical stuff you would expect (which in itself is fascinating), he also has a few humorous anecdotes too.
Dennis Muren: Nothing that you wouldn't expect. He talks about the special effects. Generally interesting and informative, but, like George, he has the tendency to spend too much time lamenting the lack of digital effects available when the movies were filmed (although not nearly as much as George)
Carrie Fisher: Unfortunately, she hardly gets any time at all on the commentary tracks, which is a shame because what she does deliver is extremely entertaining, and this tech-heavy commentary really needed some anecdotal balance to it, which someone on set would have been able to give.
Irvin Kershner: By far my favorite, and when I first listened to this in '04, it reinforced my reasoning behind why Empire has always been my favorite film of the franchise. We all know tensions were high during production, and that he was an outsider brought into George's world, but he talks about the world of Empire with such genuine enthusiasm. A lot of what he says is pretty obvious; in fact, a lot of the time he just basically narrates what's going on in the movie at the moment, but it's done with such excitement that I could listen to him all day. If I had any indication that Marquand was even half as interesting as Kershner, I would be mourning the fact that he wasn't around to do commentary for Return. But Kershner strikes a wonderful balance among the technical side, the storytelling side, and the anecdotal side, something you would think that Lucas would have been able to do on the commentary for the first film if he hadn't been so busy talking about psychological motifs and spinning his retroactive continuity. The thing about Kershner's commentary is that you have to read between the lines. I think he gets so excited about elements of the film that he can't really explain them too well, but you can definitely tell that he was responsible for so many of the amazing moment of that movie.
And soon after I saw these, I came across this article on zombie's website.
http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/magicofempire.html
This is probably the most amazing thing I've ever read. It's on set right before the filming of the carbon freeze scene. It proves that Kershner can certainly communicate eloquently when he needs to. From listening to the commentary, I got the impression that Kershner and Ford really had a mutual respect for and collaboration with one another, and this transcript proves it. Ah, what I would give to be able to hear those recordings rather than just read them! Fascinating! Definitely give it a read if you haven't already.
