Design Meme

After writing yesterday’s piece on Star Wars, I found myself reading some reviews of the new film including a rather scathing review from the New Yorker. I also found an interview with Gary Kurtz, who produced Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, where he talks about his past work with George Lucas, and his thoughts on the new films.

It’s very interesting (at least to me) to read about the direction the films could have taken. Kurtz says he and Lucas eventually parted ways after Empire because he wanted the stories in the films to be more mature, and Lucas wanted them to be more simplistic. The original outline for Return of the Jedi had Darth Vader show a much greater depth of character as he sought to ally himself with his son in an attempt to undue some of the mistakes he had made. The film would have ended on a much darker note with a hard won victory that saw Han Solo dying, Leia having to leave to become queen of her people, and Luke having to go on without his friends to face the Emperor in future films. It would have been a completely different movie.

The summer I graduated from highschool I had a medical scholarship and was working in a research lab before going to University to study science, and eventually medicine. It sounds like a great opportunity, and it was, but I began to realize I didn’t like hospitals very much, and disection even less. This really worried me about the career path I was on. I was young, and I thought the most important thing was to find a career I really loved—after all, I’d be spending the rest of my life doing it.

I had found a second-hand book at the flea-market about the making of The Empire Strikes Back. This was before anyone had really heard about new movies or special editions, so it was more a nostalgia thing for me than something that was part of current pop-culture conciousness. The book chronicled the various problems faced during the production, and the frequent disagreements between Gary Kurtz (the producer) and George Lucas (the executive producer) about the way the film was being made. I found it all very interesting, and thought making movies sounded like a lot of fun, especially when there were creative challenges to overcome.

After only a year in science, I decided to change my area of study, and became a film student in Toronto. I directed a few short films, worked on some corporate videos, and learned a lot about digital video and computers. The computer part eventually led to my current job as a web designer. It’s not hollywood, and it certainly doesn’t pay as well as being a Doctor might have, but it’s interesting. The relative newness of the Internet reminds me of the early years of the film industry, and I think that’s a good thing to be involved in. Obviously I couldn’t have planned out my career path back in highschool, as I’d never heard of the internet.

It’s only after reading that interview with Gary Kurtz that I realize Empire was a point where the series could have went in two very different directions. I think it’s a bit ironic that reading a book about the making of Empire was a factor in sending my life in a different direction as well.