Original Star Wars Producer Gary Kurtz Speaks

It’s one of the classic scenes in all three of the Star Wars films. Didn’t Harrison Ford change the dialogue to the infamous “I know,” line?
Yeah. Well, we did that a lot actually. We did another scene where on a Friday night we shot the scene where Leia’s waiting in a room and Han comes in and they have this talk, he says there’s something wrong here, you know that scene. There’s a bit of romantic sparks there, you know when he says you look great and there’s some sexual tension going there. We shot that scene on a Friday night and over the weekend Kersh came out to the house. Every Sunday we played a little tennis and kind of sat around and worked on the next week’s stuff. We both agreed that the scene wasn’t working so on Monday we went back, I called up the production team, I said we’re going to have to reshoot that part of it. We were still in the same set, so it wasn’t a big deal. I said we want to reshoot that because the dramatic level of the dialogue wasn’t quite right. It’s very difficult in a science fiction film to do anything that smacks of romance anyway because it tends to either be way over the top or it’s lost totally in the props and everything else. So we redid it and it was much better and it was just working with the actors and getting something down that was realistic, that worked on kind of an adult level that they were comfortable with. That takes time.

“It’s very difficult in a science fiction film to do anything that smacks of romance anyway because it tends to either be way over the top or it’s lost totally in the props and everything else…”

You mean you didn’t think to add fart jokes in Star Wars or Empire, stepping in poop or tired scatological humor?
(Laughter) No, none of that. There was an article in the Times about the racial and ethnic stereotypes. Of course LucasFilm’s official line is, “Well it’s in another planet so it’s just a race of creatures.” But, you look at it and say, “Wait a minute, if the only context that we have is the Earth, so if you’re going to do a race of primitive, tribal type people they’re going to be equated with primitive, tribal type people, no matter what.”

I just thought that some of them were so blatant such as the Nemoidians with their broken-english accent. It’s something that wasn’t present even in the first three films.
I think that maybe that one passed them by completely. Maybe they just didn’t realize that anyone would even equate it that way at all. But, after I saw it, I was thinking, “Well if you’re talking about the clash between primitive tribal cultures and modern cultures as one kind, why not use better examples. Why not use the Native American cultures?” The Indians had developed, even though technically they were a primitive culture, they had an incredibly developed sense of who they were as human beings and their spiritual ties to the universe and everything. I’ve studied Native American culture a lot and I’m sure although I haven’t studied it personally, I’m sure that most of the African tribal cultures had done the same thing. That to pick up on the movie stereotypes of the 30s only and not put any of the other stuff in it, I think was a real mistake.

Does Lucas like to bring in co-writers and other directors in on his “vision”?
He’s done it before. He did it with both Empire and Jedi and the idea was that different directors bring a different sensibility. I don’t know what the thinking corporately is. Several people have said, and they’ve been incredibly cynical about it, that they don’t care. I don’t find that difficult to believe that the toy revenue is so great that it doesn’t make any difference whether the movie is any good or not. I just don’t think he’s (Lucas) that kind of filmmaker. I think he DOES care, certainly. It’s just a matter of how that all the pieces fit together.