Original Star Wars Producer Gary Kurtz Speaks

Do you agree that The Phantom Menace seems to be skewed much younger?
Oh yes, it is skewed younger and maybe that’s because of the pressure about the toys, I don’t know. But it also may be, partially due to the fact that dealing with the main character is Anakin and he is young in this particular one. From a mythological point of view, I would have like to have seen him older. Because a 12 year-old is the one, that’s when you come of age. The age when you leave home, it’s the age when you’re torn away from your mother metaphorically. I think that would have worked better for people.

“…episode one was going to be about the origin of the Jedi and the killing off of the Sith Lords and much more kind of archetypal, political aspects.”

I agree. I also think that Jake Lloyd can’t be blamed for his performance, it’s adequate for someone of his age, but I think if you cast someone 14 or 12, you would have gotten a better performance. I’m curious how you felt watching Star Wars Episode 1?
Well, I find it really difficult to have any kind of objectivity about it because I know I was around when we were talking about what the first three stories would be like and what he was thinking about. Some of the treatments had references to that and episode one was going to be about the origin of the Jedi and the killing off of the Sith Lords and much more kind of archetypal, political aspects. He’s perfectly free to write and make what he wants to make, but because of all of that, I find seeing this film really difficult. I don’t feel I can really evaluate it. I can certainly look at it; it’s a nice evening’s entertainment, a lot of good stuff in it. But, there a lot of things I don’t like about the story. Things that I thought might have been better in some way or another, but I’m just another spectator like anybody else. Everybody has that opinion, they can like it or not like it, like we do with any movie. The vested interest in the saga, from the fan’s point of view, that’s pretty much whatever George wants to do. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to like it. I know what happened with Star Trek, the old Trek fans got really disenchanted and the dropped away because of what happened with The Next Generation and all the rest of it. Maybe that will happen with some of the Star Wars fans. I mean this convention in Dallas had about 7,000 people there. I find some of the fans have been scary actually. They have no life outside of talking about this and it is pretty scary. (Laughter) Some of the actors who were there, I hadn’t seen for a while, it was nice to hang out with them for a bit. Some of them do that kind of thing a lot. They go to these things every fortnight or once a month. They make money by signing autographs and things. Billy Dee Williams was there and Kenny Baker and Jeremy Bulloch who played Boba Fett and Maria, I can’t remember her surname, who played Greedo and several others.

She played Greedo, that’s just so funny. She’s in the movie for about a minute. No, she’s not even in the movie — the mask is in the movie. Who knows?
Well, so is Boba Fett. They still line up to get signatures. This one guy came up to me with a poster that he wanted everybody to sign. He got, which is pretty unusual, he got George to sign it because he actually flew, he came in from Colorado somewhere, he flew to New York for the premiere of The Phantom Menace, paid the extra to go to the party afterwards and he got George to sign his poster. He’s got almost everybody. It’s one of the original Style D Star Wars posters. He’s got a lot of signatures; it’ll probably be worth a lot of money. Unfortunately, he’ll never get Peter Cushing’s or Alec Guinness’ signature but that’s life.

What do you think about Leo DiCaprio potentially being cast as the older Anakin for Star Wars Episode II?
I don’t like the idea of movie stars in Star Wars, personally. I find that it’s really difficult to associate with the characters.

“I find that really difficult in science fiction to do that, to take movie stars of any kind. It is just not possible…”

Star Wars really made Harrison Ford a star.
Indiana Jones really made him a star. He had only been in seven or eight minor movies for Universal. He was in American Graffiti for about ten minutes. Empire was made at the same time as Raiders of the Lost Ark more or less. Raiders came out the next year so, he shot Empire then he shot Raiders of the Lost Ark. It wasn’t until Raiders came out that he was really “a rising movie star.” So in both Star Wars and Empire they were just people. You can say, “Well, Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness were both movie stars of a sort and they were recognizable figures,” but they were playing characters that were okay as archetypal characters, where as they weren’t the core characters the audience is identifying with. I find that really difficult in science fiction to do that, to take movie stars of any kind. It is just not possible. Certain films work perfectly with movie stars. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid wouldn’t have worked without Redford. The Sting, the same thing, that those kind of films rely on the stars personæ and your knowledge of the history of their career to make those personalities work. In science fiction, you don’t have that, you don’t want that, I don’t think.