Third Entry – Year 33 ABY:5:9
From Hoth to Dantooine, I have rifled through countless documents and watched countless hours of film with the hope of piecing together this vast puzzle I lay before you now. I cannot say that this information is definitive, but merely the best picture I could conjure up through research, reason, and my limited knowledge of The Force.
This will be a long entry, but entirely necessary. Let me begin…
Star Wars: A New Hope was not always the classic movie that we see it as today. At the time of its release it was just a relatively low budget sci-fi movie, a genre of film that was not taken very seriously in 1977 (2001: A Space Odyssey being the only real exception). Many of the people who worked on it didn’t take it very seriously and saw it as a goofy kid’s movie, so the fact that it was a massive success was a surprise to everyone. Including George Lucas.
In the DVD commentary of Hope, Lucas says that the genesis of Star Wars was when he first watched Akira Kurosawa’s films (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and especially The Hidden Fortress) in college, and mentions that because he didn’t know anything about Japanese culture when watching them, he almost felt overwhelmed by this foreign world that was never really explained within the movie while all of the action took place (and it didn’t need to be since the Japanese audience would already be familiar with it). This was a feeling he wanted to recreate for Star Wars and that is exactly what he did.
It’s hard to feel this effect anymore. Star Wars has since become so ingrained within our popular culture, that everything from Yoda to the Death Star to lightsabers are familiar to almost everybody before even watching the films. But it wasn’t always this way. People look at Hope now as being sort of quaint compared to the sequels. If you see it in the light in which it was created though, it was entirely necessary that it was made that way to establish the universe, characters, and some of the ideas that they focus on in later movies.
As we all know now, the original film was written and directed by George Lucas himself. It is no secret that George has a hard time working with actors on a set (he prefers animation because nobody can argue or cause any drama), and he has mentioned in various interviews that he doesn’t really enjoy the writing process either. So by the time pre-production on The Empire Strikes Back began, he wanted to take more of a hands off approach to the filming. So while he stayed in California to oversee the building of Skywalker Ranch and the Lucasfilm company, he employed others to handle the majority of the creative descisions for Empire.
This is where things get really interesting.
At one point during my research, I asked myself: Why it is that The Empire Strikes Back is so much better than the other films?
After reading through many documents and watching many holodiscs worth of footage, I came up with a list of the names of 3 men. Their combined involvement in Empire is among one of the most important observations of my investigation. They are as follows:
Gary Kurtz, Lawrence Kasdan, and Irvin Kershner.
I have come to the conclusion that it is because of this perfect combination that Empire is so good. Two of them, Gary Kurtz and Lawrence Kasdan had a hand in 2 of the 3 originals (Kurtz in 4-5 and Kasdan in 5-6), while Kershner was only involved in Empire. I will now address each of these men individually.
Gary Kurtz: He was the producer of both Hope and Empire. Many people believe that he is responsible for keeping things reasonable in those first two movies, such as making The Force more mystical than scientific and being anti-Ewoks (which some believe is among the reasons he quit/was fired from Return of the Jedi before it began production). Also, he claims that after Raiders of the Lost Ark came out in 1981 (which Lucas made with Steven Spielberg), that George became convinced that people didn’t care about story, and were only interested in thrills and spectacle. A very important thing to consider when looking at the Prequels. It is also worth noting that after leaving the Star Wars saga, Kurtz went on to produce The Dark Crystal and Return to OZ. Both of which contain strong mystical elements within their stories.
Lawrence Kasdan: Writer of the final script of Empire. After A New Hope was released, George Lucas knew he didn’t want nearly as much involvement in the sequel, so he handed this off writing duties to a writer named Leigh Brackett. When he got the script back though, he didn’t like it much and, unfortunately, Brackett died shortly after of ovarian cancer, so he gave the script to a writer named Lawrence Kasdan (who also co-wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark and has been nominated for Oscars for other scripts he has written and directed). By all accounts, Kasdan basically re-wrote the entire movie, developing the characters from the first film and giving depth to the story (Lucas definitely had a hand in guiding the overall story, but most of the specific plot points and character development can be credited to Kasdan). Lucas liked his version of the script and went on to hire…
Irvin Kershner: who directed The Empire Strikes Back. Irvin Kershner is an interesting character. If you should ever get the chance, I recommend listening to the audio commentary on the Empire Strikes Back DVD. He is essentially the real life version of Yoda. One moment making lame old-man jokes and laughing hysterically. The next, offering some profound insight about the importance of story and character in a film. While Kurtz oversaw the production and Kasdan wrote it, Kershner added some of the more humorous dialogue to the film. He felt that since the overall film was darker and more serious than the first, it needed a certain level of light-heartedness to balance it out. At the same time, he didn’t want to resort to slapstick physical humor to get this across because it would distract from the gravity of the plot. This is a tightrope he navigated expertly. He kept the movie simple while keeping it interesting.
These three men. They are the primary elements that made Empire Strikes Back such an incredible movie. Of course, none of it would have been possible without George Lucas either, but based on the audio commentaries (and an article in the May edition of Entertainment Weekly celebrating the 30th anniversary of Empire), George only visited the set a couple of times and was very hands-off for the entire production.
So what happened after that? Many people view Return of the Jedi as equal to Empire. But look closely. Watch it again. Look at how much of it is filler material, and how certain characters seem to not develop any further. Let The Force guide you, and search your feelings. They do you credit, but they could be made to serve the Emperor.
TK-421