The forgotten force behind Star Wars‘ success
Producer Gary Kurtz played a major role in creating Star Wars, and the franchise would never quite be the same after his mysterious departure
Film Features Star Wars
Imagine Star Wars without merch. Or Ewoks. Or another Death Star, just two movies after the first. Imagine if Leia and Luke weren’t related, and might have become lovers. Imagine Han Solo dying in the third film rather than the seventh. Or Leia Organa never marrying, and taking on her ruler’s role as a burden—a laying down of childish things, like swashbuckling adventure, for the greater good. Imagine Luke Skywalker as a ronin of the stars, a space samurai stripped of any religious order to serve, and righting wrongs freelance.
That isn’t a proposal for a Star Wars multiverse. The alternate reality described might have existed, if the collaboration between George Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz stayed intact to the end of the original three movie story arc.
Already a member of the 1970s New Hollywood elite when Lucas met him, Kurtz had jack of all trades talents—including superb camera skills—but he never seems to have seriously aspired to direct. Producing was Kurtz’s art form. It’s widely held that Kurtz (who also produced cult classics The Dark Crystal and Return To Oz) was a major factor in the almost experimental choices that make The Empire Strikes Back perhaps the greatest creative leap by any blockbuster sequel ever. But despite his key contributions, Kurtz would not last long in the galaxy far, far away. The story of his departure—was Kurtz thrown down the Sarlacc pit by Lucas himself, or did he walk off for unknown reasons—remains one of the biggest mysteries in the long-running Star Wars saga.
Ready to change the world
Like George Lucas, Kurtz was an alumni of the film school at USC—in those days a far cry from the Hollywood finishing school it is today. In the Lucas era (1964–1967), USC was a hotbed of experimentalism, resonating to the growing outrage over the Vietnam War. The humbler, Kurtz-era ‘SC of 1959 barely held enough students to crew its movies, and supported itself making instructional films with Army surplus cameras on black-and-white stock.
Guerrilla film training came in handy when Kurtz got drafted into the Vietnam War. As a conscientious objector he carried a camera, not a gun—the braver choice, some might say. Upon his return, Kurtz worked on what he estimated were around 40 quickie exploitation films, mostly for American International Pictures, an indie drive-in powerhouse known for Edgar Alan Poe adaptations and “Beach Party” comedies. Through AIP, Kurtz befriended another hopeful named Francis Coppola.
Then Coppola introduced Kurtz to George Lucas, and everything changed.
A far out collaboration
Lucas was coming off his flop debut THX-1138—a dour sci-fi “homage” to Orwell’s 1984. But he had a warmer follow-up in the works, about high schoolers in Modesto pondering their futures in 1962. American Graffiti was developed as part of Ned Tanen’s legendary low-budget production lab at Universal, alongside Douglas Trumbull’s sci-fi allegory Silent Running—a major visual touchstone for Star Wars. Produced by Coppola and Kurtz and released by Universal in 1973, American Graffiti nabbed Kurtz a Best Picture Oscar nomination, becoming a top grosser of the pre-Star Wars era.
According to Kurtz, much of what people think came next is corporate folklore, invented to make Star Wars seem like a pre-ordained creative act by a singular genius. Kurtz laughed off any suggestion that a nine-film Star Wars epic was envisioned from the start, pointing to how he and Lucas first tried for rights to adapt Flash Gordon before generating their similar, space-bound project. They didn’t exactly envision a trilogy either, though Lucas’ script was so expansive that when they carved out a section and called it Star Wars, there was still lots of story left.
Among many contributions, Kurtz created the budget used to sell studios on the premise they could make Star Wars cheaply (and they did—it came in for around $11 million); and he brought in Trumbull protege John Dykstra to handle effects, a key step toward the formation of Lucas’ own Industrial Light and Magic. Kurtz negotiated a deal to film Star Wars at Pinewood Studios in London (they switched to Elstree when Pinewood could only make one stage available), launching Pinewood’s long association with the franchise, which has outlasted Lucas’ own. Watch The Making Of Star Wars—an excellent 1977 TV documentary from the height of the initial mania—and you see Kurtz treated as a creative equal. The first film’s outrageous success is a shared accomplishment.
But Lucas was traumatized by making his first epic on the cheap, so part of his dream for the sequel was that he would not direct it. For The Empire Strikes Back, Irvin Kershner was brought in to helm the film while Lucas joined Kurtz on the floor as a second full-time producer—one no longer encumbered by directing chores, nor anything resembling the financial pushback Kurtz had previously deflected from distributor 20th Century Fox. By all accounts, Kurtz was deeply enmeshed in Empire at every step. But the one thing Kurtz wasn’t doing any more was clearing problems out of the way for George Lucas, director. It’s hard not to see this as the beginning of the end.
Lucas was now spending his own rather than studio dollars, and he came to see Empire as a runaway, afflicted by spiraling costs. But if the creative question of producing is whether the money is onscreen, in Empire it clearly is. A cosmos barely sketched by Star Wars becomes three dimensional in Empire—humid and swampy on Dagobah; lyrically beautiful as Cloud City floats in the twilight sky; cold and foreboding when Vader severs Luke’s hand, deep within Cloud City’s endless neon bowels. Kurtz spoke of their divergence over his perfectionism on Empire ruefully. “[George] said, ‘We could have made just as much money if [Empire] hadn’t been quite so good, and you hadn’t spent so much time.’ And I said, ‘But it was worth it!’”
Kurtz wanted emotion, Lucas wanted toys
By preproduction on Return Of The Jedi, Kurtz and Lucas were clashing routinely. Kurtz wanted to retain the edge of Empire in the follow up, and he felt toy sales (by then pulling in three times the film profits) were driving bad creative decisions, including converting the Wookie Planet of the original Revenge Of The Jedi concept into a home world for Ewok plush toys. Kurtz knew first-hand what war does to people, and wanted to round out the trilogy on a note of loss, with Han dead, Leia grieving as she takes on the task of building a functional society, and Luke turning alone toward the vastness of space. Instead, Lucas steered “his” movie toward a fairy-tale ending, where even the Force Ghost of Vader smiles contentedly upon Ewok Festivus. Lucas’ decision to repeat himself with a second Death Star (shades of J.J. Abrams!) especially irked Kurtz.
By the time Return Of The Jedi went into production, Kurtz was gone. Depending on who’s telling the story, he either walked off or was pushed off. Some say Kurtz was fired by Lucas because Empire went massively over schedule and over budget. Kurtz himself called it “a mutual parting” based on not wanting to “repeat something I had already done.” Mark Hamill likened it to watching your parents divorce. Kurtz didn’t ascend to the creative heights of Empire Strikes Back again; he needed Lucas’ vision, but the vision needed him back. Few other than the most ardent prequelists would argue that Star Wars movies got better with Kurtz gone. Like any great producer, Kurtz was adept at the delicate task of serving someone else’s art as if it was his own. It was a skill George Lucas never found in a Star Wars collaborator again.
Kurtz died in 2018 at age 78, his later years spent producing films that got very little attention. His final producing credit is for 2023’s overlooked 5-25-77, about a boy whose goal is to see the original Star Wars on opening day. The film is a lovely space-helmet tip to the power of movies and it traffics in the feelings of wonder and magic that thankfully never left Gary Kurtz, even after he departed a franchise that would never be the same—or as good—without him. His contributions to the movie universe that Lucas and eventually Disney would pound into merchandizing dust deserves to be remembered on this May the 4th. To recall Gary Kurtz’s contribution to Star Wars is to wonder what the franchise could have been.
83 Comments
The original trilogy was shot at Elstree. So were parts of the prequels. Pinewood wasn’t used until the Disney era.
There’s even a whole documentary about it!
Don’t let facts get in the way of someone trying to deface George Lucas’ reputation by giving everyone but Lucas credit for Star Wars.
And Marlon Brando’s character in Apocalypse Now was named for him! Well, not really
I guess “Billy D. Williams” is technically accurate, but…c’mon.
You beat me to it. I was going to post this in response:
William December is a pretty cool name.
Homage to Homer Jay Simpson?
I think you’re giving too much credit.
Now lookee-here . . . I see Oh-Jay!
The stabs at intentional humor by the writers on this site don’t hold a candle to the unintentional ones.
Return of the Jedi was closer in quality to the holiday special than to The Empire Strikes Back. There, I said it.
yeah you said it, you can also say that the stars are actually painted dots in the sky. Not even high on house cleaners you can say that this final montage is bad.I know there are some of you who grew up edgy and never got over that, but bloody hell the hot take.
Yes still better then almost everything that same after
Are you kidding? The quality of the two is leagues apart. I mean, when you’ve got Bea Arthur *and* Jefferson Starship, it’s hard not to be fabulous.
I don’t think I have ever heard of Slipstream. I love cheesy dystopian sci-fi movies so I am intrigued though it does not sound good
It’s definitely cheesy. Also definitely not good.
And the cast! I know Mark Hamill went through a phase acting in terrible low-budget movies in the 1980s, but Slipstream also had Bill Paxton and Ben Kingsley (after he had won an Oscar). I hadn’t heard of it either, but imagine how bad a film had to be to feature that cast and yet be obscure.
Hey now, Corvette Summer was 1978. Don’t sell the man short.
The lead actress in Slipstream, Kitty Aldridge, is better known for writing novels & being married to Mark Knopfler
Sultans of Slipstream
Ben Kingsley is third billed for a cameo.It’s a terrible movie.
Apparently you can watch it for free (well, with ads) on Tubi and Roku. (I looked it up on JustWatch). Assuming your time has no value, I suppose.
I own dvd of it I bought at a truck stop on a road trip decades ago. I cherish it 🙂
It was Hamill’s first film role since Jedi after a long stint in theater trying to shake the shadow of Luke Skywalker. Sadly, his loyalty to Kurtz was not rewarded and he was pretty much relegated to B films and guest parts afterward, at least until his voiceover career began to take off.
I can at least say I’ve heard of Slipstream, seen the trailer and the very end of the film.
I was looking for a message of Slipstream in this article. They might have mentioned that it was the movie that drove Kurtz into bankruptcy. It did so poorly it never even got a US theatrical release.
When I saw this headline, I thought it was a rare occasion when some credit was being given to a woman for her contribution to renowned movies of the 1970s, in this case Marcia Lucas. She was an incredible editor and helped George shape the original story both before and after shooting. But no… Another name that few remember but who was hugely important: Polly Platt.
Fortunately, both Marcia Lucas and Polly Platt are well represented In Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders and Raging Bulls. In the book, Marcia Lucas remembers she thought Star Wars was kind of kiddie stuff and expected Scorsese’s New York, New York would be a bigger hit. In early 1977, that didn’t seem too implausible.
To piggyback on what you’re saying, I think even many casual Star Wars fans have at least heard of Gary Kurtz. Anyone who’s ever gotten into the whole “Why Empire is the best Star Wars film” conversation has definitely heard of him. He might not get his due credit still, but he’s definitely not “forgotten”.
Keep in mind this website is now written by college kids.
While we’re at it: Richard Chew, at the time Oscar-winning editor of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, was the lead editor on A New Hope and not only came up with the trench run as an alternate ending but also created it nearly whole cloth out of barely-useable footage.Also Ashley Boone Jr (the first black person to head a major Hollywood studio — who lasted 4 months on the job… it was the 70’s, guess why), shepherded Star Wars through theaters, designing its entire marketing campaign, renewing and revamping it repeatedly to keep it in theaters, and pushing up the release date to Memorial Day so kids would see it when they left school. The movie needed to sell 30 million out of the gate with only 1 million promised by theaters — he made that happen. (He’s also the guy who invented the midnight screenings of Rocky Horror Picture show that continue to this day.)And Leigh Brackett, who wrote about 80%-90% of Empire Strikes Back before dying before its release. (You can read her drafts online if you’re curious.)
None of what Brackett wrote was in the movie. Lucas wrote the story himself and then Kasdan turned into a filmable script. Her script was bad, Lucas didn’t like it, but Lucas credited her anyway out of respect for her memory.
I became a fan of Brackett after first learning about her from ESB release articles. But her ESB draft bears little resemblance to the film that got made, and is barely recognizable as “Star Wars” at that.
… it was the 70’s, guess why: cocaine?
Chew didn’t win for ‘Cuckoo’s Next.’ That was the year Verna Fields won for ‘Jaws’ (and rightly so).
You might enjoy this article of Boone in the Hollywood Reporter a few years back. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/he-was-star-wars-secret-weapon-why-was-he-forgotten-1275211/
Marcia didn’t do shit.
I think you miss the point of the article. Kurtz was by far the most influential creative in making Empire as critically lauded as it was, and then it fell off the cliff into RotJ without his involvement. Marcia Lucas, as amazing of editor as we she was, wasn’t able to stop George from being more concerned with the toy money. The article is just questioning what could’ve been if Kurtz could have retained the creative influence he had through SW and Empire. It would have likely changed the entire tenor of the SW movie universe going forward. It’s weird to think the headline of “forgotten” would refer to Marcia when she was already a BAFTA and Academy Award nominated editor before she won the Academy Award for Star Wars.
She quit the industry the industry didn’t quit her
I agree with your sentiment, though dare I say no one is really “forgotten” regarding Star Wars.
It’s one of the most well documented works in pop culture.
Case in point:https://www.polygon.com/2016/2/10/10959790/star-wars-boshek-actor-uncredited-mystery#:~:text=In%20an%20update%20to%20his%20website%2C%20the%20writer,of%20the%20uncredited%20actor%3A%20Frances%20Alfred%20Basil%20Tomlin.
.
When did he lose the chinstrap?
He was married three times. Guessing he lost it in one of the divorces.
He looks like a dude who knew he was expected to have a beard in the 1970s but wasn’t exactly clear on the assignment.
Guessing when someone finally told him the truth about how it looked.
Really, the only place that beard style is appropriate is on an 18th century naval vessel.
Also acceptable: Amish communities, English.
The Amish Navy
Those Amish can quilt a damn fine ship.
It always felt like with ‘Return’ and the prequels that it was Lucas unfettered with no one telling him no or even, “You sure about that, George?” and this was absolutely to the detriment of the product on screen. On ‘Star Wars’; everyone was telling him no, from the Studio on down. But it still got made and it was glorious. On ‘Empire’, it seems, Kurtz was the only one telling him no. Just one guy but, still. A no is a no. And we all know how that one turned out.Once everyone turned into a yes man, Lucas was free to indulge in any and every cheese corn flight of fancy he wished and, therefore, we get Ewoks. Thank the Maker for the No Man.
This argument does not have a shred of evidence to it. Your argument has no factual basis and is pure conjecture because you liked the first 2 SW films and didn’t like the next 4. George was always in charge of every single aspect of production. When you have final cut privilege and you’re footing the bill for the entire production (which was unheard of at the time), no one can tell you what to do.
I really don’t mind the Ewoks. Yes, you can say (probably correctly) that without them we wouldn’t have had to face Jar-Jar Binks, and the like, but the Ewoks despite being cute had some bite (no pun intended). We are introduced to them wanting to eat our heroes, and all the empty Stormtrooper armor we see them using as drums and the like implies that they’ve feasted upon Imperials in the past.
They weren’t completely Jar-Jar level awful but, they were obviously included to sell toys and that’s not how you want creative decisions made. Also, we could’ve had a planet of Wookiees instead which, in terms of besting an Imperial occupation makes a hell of a lot more sense.
Are we at the point where Society is beginning to wonder if Star Wars succeeded despite George Lucas rather than because of him? So many stories have come out in the intervening years of how other, more talented people have a much greater responsibility for how these films turned out than the man supposedly in charge, stories only given more credence by how projects where he wielded sole power turned out.
Look around at the other comments. I don’t think it’s any secret that George has WONDERFUL ideas that have enchanted millions of us, but he needs someone to control that output and weed out the S*****Y ideas.
Since there are people who believe the earth is flat, the Holocaust is a hoax, vaccines cause retardation, and that Trump really won the 2020 election, no doubt there are morons who believe Star Wars succeeded in spite of George Lucas.
The only person who ever told George Lucas “no” on a Star Wars movie was Gilbert Taylor, the cinematographer. He and the production designer, John Barry, were at loggerheads over the paint color and lighting in the corridors of the Death Star. Taylor went behind the backs of Barry and Lucas and lit the scenes his way. The notion that filmmakers need backseat drivers on their own films is clownishly stupid. As the late J.W. Rinzler points out, most filmmakers won’t tolerate that kind of insubordination:https://www.youtube.com/live/nD5FqAJf3T0?feature=share&t=1536
nice article, thanks!
I mean there’s not a lot of mystery here. Empire went over budget (and behind schedule), and Lucas was financing the picture through a bank loan, which the bank refused to extend because they adopted a policy of not extending loans to films which went over budget. To get the completion funds Lucas had to go to 20th Century Fox, who got a bigger portion of the gross in exchange.Now was this entirely Kurtz’s fault, I don’t know. Sometimes these things happen, and a lot of big films in that stretch of time were going over budget (certainly Empire’s overages weren’t that significant compared to say, Heaven’s Gate). For all I know inflation was a factor. But generally speaking much of a producer’s job is keeping a production on track and keeping an eye on things like the money and the schedule. Was the finished product worth it? Absolutely, it’s a great film. But I think it’s understandable if Lucas got a little more cautious where his own money was concerned. (And TBF, Lucas helped Kurtz out when Return to Oz ran into financial difficulties.)
I think a big part of it was that Kurtz was telling Lucas, who stayed in Cali, that “We’re behind schedule but on budget” when they were bleeding money from day one.
Kurtz wanted emotion, Lucas wanted toys
Ah the Gary Kurtz self-mythology.Oh god not this crap. Gary Kurtz should’ve tried being a good producer and not let Empire Strikes Back go way over budget if he didn’t want to lose his job. Because of him Lucas had to go take out a loan and hand over a bigger percentage of the movie’s BO profit to Fox (just as Lucas was starting to go independent of the Hollywood system).
Every fanboy and his uncle are like “Justice 4 Marcia and Gary Kurtz!!!!!” They are not at all “forgotten.”
Kurtz was important because he knew when to tell Lucas this is stupid no. Moment he left, oh would you look at that, the franchise went off the rails and Lucas just hired yes men who didn’t push back on his ideas. I will note there’s a lot of unsung heros in the making of Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, from Lucas’s wife all the way to sound people like Ben Burt.
Oh, this pathetic argument again? “Everything I like about Star Wars (the OT) was done by other people. All the stuff I don’t like (the prequels), yeah, George did all that.” This argument has been debunked to death. George was not “restrained” in the OT and “let loose” in the prequels. George has always had the exact same level of power on all 6 original SW films. No one was EVER in a position to say “George, we’re going to do things my way, not yours.”
The reason the first three movies worked at all was because Lucas had people there to tell him he was being stupid. By the time the prequels come out, the old guard has left and Lucas just has a bunch of acolytes raised on his movies making exactly the crap he wants.
Looking at you Rick McCallum. That guy just rubber stamped whatever George felt like doing.
Rick McCallum was not hired to be a creative partner for Lucas. He was just hired to write checks and handle logistics.
Which is the producer’s job -one Gary Kurtz failed at doing.
Were you born this stupid? A producer’s job is to do what the filmmaker tells him.
Too bad no one’s around to tell you how you’re being stupid.
Total bullshit. Gary Kurtz didn’t make any creative decisions on Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, or even American Graffiti. He wasn’t fired because George Lucas was jealous of his creative input, but because he ran the production way over schedule and lied to both Lucasfilm and Bank of America, who issued the loan. The bank pulled the plug on the movie, forcing George Lucas to scramble for another lender to finish the film. The First National Bank of Boston fired Gary Kurtz, telling Lucasfilm that they would only agree to finance the film if a new producer was put in charge. That’s why Kazanjian produced Return of the Jedi and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Imagine Star Wars without merch. Or Ewoks. Or another Death Star, just two movies after the first. Imagine if Leia and Luke weren’t related, and might have become lovers. Imagine Han Solo dying in the third film rather than the seventh. Or Leia Organa never marrying, and taking on her ruler’s role as a burden—a laying down of childish things, like swashbuckling adventure, for the greater good. Imagine Luke Skywalker as a ronin of the stars, a space samurai stripped of any religious order to serve, and righting wrongs freelance.Man, this is the biggest “what-might-have-been” scenario for this saga since Trevorrow’s script for Episode XI leaked.And I don’t see why Return couldn’t have gone more Kurtz’s way and still not been a merch-fest for Lucas. Plush Wookiees are just as cuddly, and surely A-wings and B-wings and TIE Interceptors and speederbikes could have been featured enough in either version to drive toy sales.
Episode IX, I mean. Stupid Roman numbers.
They never even tried to teach us those in school!
Whoa I had no idea the original Star Wars was shot for $11 Million. An inflation calculator tells me that’s $56 Million in 2023 money – that’s like a romantic comedy budget now!
“She’s a real princess! He’s a scruffy nerf-herder! Is the galaxy big enough for the two of them? Find out in this romantic comedy that proves you can’t Force love: ‘Star Wars: A New Hopeless Romantic’!”
Years ago the L.A. Times did a story on Gary Kurtz as well. It was a good one. I always felt that When Gary left Star Wars lost one thing that was never the same. Someone who would tell GL “No.”. Rick McCallum was a yes man, and never reigned Lucas in.
Here’s a link to the L.A. Times Story: https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/hero-complex-blog/story/2010-08-12/did-star-wars-become-a-toy-story-producer-gary-kurtz-looks-back
It’s reined in, numbnuts. And Gary Kurtz never reined in George Lucas either.
While I can see some of Kurtz’s ideas working, I’m definitely not mad about Han surviving through to the end of Episode VI. It may be a fairy-tale ending, but the rest of the trilogy is a fairy-tale as well. I think you get plenty of pathos in Darth Vader’s redemption and death, so you can afford to have Han get a happy ending.
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I don’t care. I really don’t care. I had enjoyed the Prequel Trilogy and the further development of the franchise too much to care about Gary Kurtz’s contribution to the Star Wars saga. [”Kurtz wanted emotion, Lucas wanted toys”]This is nonsense. And I’m getting tired of people giving credit to anyone other than George Lucas, when it came to the saga as a whole. Granted, I’m not that fond of Disney’s contribution to the franchise. But I still don’t miss Gary Kurtz.