Gary Kurtz, 1940-2018: an obituary

Gary Kurtz with Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill
on the set of Star Wars

Gary Kurtz died on Sunday, September 23, at the age of 78.

He was, of course, the producer of Star Wars – and screen credits don’t get much bigger than that. And yet I think he has also become one of Star Wars’ unsung heroes.

Will the original, unaltered 1977 Star Wars ever be released on Blu-ray?

The approach to Yavin, as seen in the 1977 cut of Star Wars

With Christmas upon us, there is one gift that legions of first generation fans want but seem destined never to get. The original, unaltered, 1977 cut of Star Wars on Blu-ray or DVD.

Today, we consider whether we'll ever see Star Wars the way first generation fans remember it – and what form the ideal Blu-ray would take.

5 ways things might have been different if Star Wars had not been a hit

A young George Lucas 

George Lucas believed there might just be enough science fiction fans in the world to ensure that a film with a title like Star Wars was at least modestly profitable.

If Star Wars had been just that kind of minor success, or even a failure, the history of cinema since then might have looked very different. But so would the course George Lucas’s subsequent career. Oddly enough, even the films he made before Star Wars would be different today. 

Laughing at Star Wars: the Top 10 funniest jokes in the original movie - part one

Big laughs: the original Star Wars had more jokes than people think

Here's a fact that's sometimes forgotten about the original Star Wars: It had some very good jokes.

I don't just mean in-jokes, i.e. references to other films and literature that made critics and movie buffs feel clever when they spotted them.  (I wrote about some of those references here.) No, I mean genuine jokes which prompted audiences to laugh out loud.  I remember some of the laughter quite vividly from that first viewing all those years ago.

Mr. Star Wars - George Lucas in 1977

Quietly single-minded: George Lucas 
shooting Star Wars in 1976

What do we know about George Lucas – the young man with enough drive and imagine to make the most successful movie the world had ever seen?

Today, of course, he is a multi-billionaire , a retired company head, semi-retired film-maker, a philanthropist, and the object of roughly equal adoration and derision from Star Wars fans. But who was he back in 1977, when he turned 33 just before his long-planned space film was released?