One of my filmmaking heroes will always be GARY KURTZ. He’s not too popular nowadays because he hasn’t done any high profile films lately but he did produced 3 films that are still considered one of the highest grossing films of all time. AMERICAN GRAFFITI, STARWARS and EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. I wrote earlier on that one of the reasons EPISODE 1AND 2 sucked was because GEORGE LUCAS hired RICK MCCALLUM as his producer. If you don’t believe me watch the DVDs of the a fore mentioned films. MCCALLUM is a YES MAN. He would stop at nothing short of kissing GEORGE LUCAS butts and praising hosannas as long as he gets to keep his job.

Unlike GARY KURTZ who stuck his neck out too often and told LUCAS that some of his ideas don’t work. Well if he didn’t then we would have the EWOKS A FILM TOO EARLY, prancing and uttering their inane gibberish on the HOTH PLANET!

In the early 80s, I remember opening the newspaper one morning and seeing the then PRESIDENT MARCOS welcoming the international delegates of the manila international film festival and my eyes nearly popped out! There seated across him was
GARY KURTZ! He’s a Quaker and had that trademark Quaker beard and the hair that was combed to the left! Of course there was no caption on the paper mentioning his name. But I know that face! His photos in Tunisia beside LUCAS doing STAR WARS were plastered all over the sci-fi magazines that I collected!

My guess was that he was here to promote the release of his latest film the JIM Henson directed DARK CRYSTAL. So I told my cousins who were STAR WARS FREAK that KURTZ was here and that we should shell out the then astronomical 300 pesos to watch the movie premiere in the hope of bumping into him and having him signed my JOHN WILLAIMS STAR WARS SOUNDTRACK DOUBLE LP.

We went in early on the look out for KURTZ. My cousin spotted BEN KINGSLEY who was there for GHANDI and ran after him for an autograph. I was never into the RICHARD ATTENBOURGH 3 HOUR EPIC ABOUT A THIN MAN WHO STARVED HIMSELF TO DEATH. I was into THE GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY.

I didn’t see him but I saw DARK CRYSTAL. It was ok not spectacular. There was something about watching a film starring puppets and marionettes that becomes tedious after the first hour. Anyway, Brian Froud designed some of the creatures in the film.

Kurtz is one of those unique film producers who went to film school and is a filmmaker. He shot second unit photography on STAR WARS and EMPIRE, He was also the still photograher on GODFATHER 2. He can talk and articulate on film preservation and acrhving using the optical printer and storing the original negs minus the primary three colours!

I wonder how EPISODE 1 AND 2 AND RETURN OF THE JEDI would have been like if KURTZ stayed on as producer. A hell of a lot better than the present versions!

And incidentally the original choice to play HAN SOLO was CHRISTOPHER WALKEN. TOSHIRO MIFUNE was being tagged to play OBI WAN KENOBI.

I don’t know about CHRISTOPHER WALKEN but I wonder who would be playing the young OBI WAN if MIFUNE agreed to play KENOBI.