hate gary kurtz http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomp...z-wer.html
i'm not one to defend lucas, but this thing was just awful and pretty blind and i can't stand it whenever i see this particular circlejerk. the writer paints kurtz as a visionary, and kurtz says everything short of calling george a sellout. so what if starwars turned into a gigantic marketing behemoth prone to goofy plot swaps? that's what drove the movies into production, without that the series probably would have crashed and burned.
while the article goes on about making the first starwars film on a "small budget", at the time (mid 70's) 13 million was an unprecedented amount to gamble on a space opera. after that, millions that funded empire came from those merchandising sales.
ILM was just a bunch of weirdo potheads playing with stone-age machinery before lucas came along, and after the first starwars he made sure to hand out millions in bonuses from the revenue generated by the first film. now ILM is the #1 global special-effects superpower largely because of what they reaped from starwars.
on the change in plot in rotj, that was happening all the time during the movies. because of funding issues it was highly doubtful that they'd get to make more than one movie so there were a lot of changes. the first starwars film wasn't even supposed to have a deathstar in it. instead of leaving it for the third film's finale it was pressed into the first, and what they thought would be the only, film-- the "second" deathstar was originally supposed to be the only one.
kenobi wasn't supposed to die in the first film, but since the deathstar was being introduced it was silly to have this ancient warrior-sage sit on the sidelines while his bumblefuck pupil went to battle. so, he was killed off. what kenobi was originally supposed to do in the second film (train luke) ended up going to a completely new character: yoda.
on the changes that happened specifically in rotj, i'm always disappointed at the volume of people who don't grasp that the series is suited for young teens not adults. people should take note that pg-13 didn't exist until speilberg and american zoetrope created it. before that, it was just G, PG, R, and X. there was this huge segment of consumers (early teens) that nobody was marketing to. of course, they had no clout with the MPA so they just made movies to tap that market under the PG rating, eventually forcing adoption of the new rating. in getting to that point, lucas spent a lot of energy working with psychologists to craft a type of storytelling that fit this new demographic. anybody remember when lucas made a public statement telling people not to bring their small children to see revenge of the sith? that's because he had been convinced small children would have a hard time watching a major character kill his wife, scream about hate while burning in a river of fire, and then becoming the manservant of the devil. sure, kurtz's preferred ending to rotj was "nuanced" and whatever, but it didn't fit the consumers they were marketing to.
tl;dr kurtz is a douche, he mad being a sideshow at lucasfest
i'm not one to defend lucas, but this thing was just awful and pretty blind and i can't stand it whenever i see this particular circlejerk. the writer paints kurtz as a visionary, and kurtz says everything short of calling george a sellout. so what if starwars turned into a gigantic marketing behemoth prone to goofy plot swaps? that's what drove the movies into production, without that the series probably would have crashed and burned.
while the article goes on about making the first starwars film on a "small budget", at the time (mid 70's) 13 million was an unprecedented amount to gamble on a space opera. after that, millions that funded empire came from those merchandising sales.
ILM was just a bunch of weirdo potheads playing with stone-age machinery before lucas came along, and after the first starwars he made sure to hand out millions in bonuses from the revenue generated by the first film. now ILM is the #1 global special-effects superpower largely because of what they reaped from starwars.
on the change in plot in rotj, that was happening all the time during the movies. because of funding issues it was highly doubtful that they'd get to make more than one movie so there were a lot of changes. the first starwars film wasn't even supposed to have a deathstar in it. instead of leaving it for the third film's finale it was pressed into the first, and what they thought would be the only, film-- the "second" deathstar was originally supposed to be the only one.
kenobi wasn't supposed to die in the first film, but since the deathstar was being introduced it was silly to have this ancient warrior-sage sit on the sidelines while his bumblefuck pupil went to battle. so, he was killed off. what kenobi was originally supposed to do in the second film (train luke) ended up going to a completely new character: yoda.
on the changes that happened specifically in rotj, i'm always disappointed at the volume of people who don't grasp that the series is suited for young teens not adults. people should take note that pg-13 didn't exist until speilberg and american zoetrope created it. before that, it was just G, PG, R, and X. there was this huge segment of consumers (early teens) that nobody was marketing to. of course, they had no clout with the MPA so they just made movies to tap that market under the PG rating, eventually forcing adoption of the new rating. in getting to that point, lucas spent a lot of energy working with psychologists to craft a type of storytelling that fit this new demographic. anybody remember when lucas made a public statement telling people not to bring their small children to see revenge of the sith? that's because he had been convinced small children would have a hard time watching a major character kill his wife, scream about hate while burning in a river of fire, and then becoming the manservant of the devil. sure, kurtz's preferred ending to rotj was "nuanced" and whatever, but it didn't fit the consumers they were marketing to.
tl;dr kurtz is a douche, he mad being a sideshow at lucasfest
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