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Gary Kurtz (born July 27, 1940 in Los Angeles, California) is a two time Academy Award nominated film producer, who worked on Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Many assert his absence led to the alleged decline in subsequent Star Wars movies.^{[citation needed]}

He went on to produce The Dark Crystal and Return to Oz after departing from Star Wars.

Kurtz has claimed that he and George Lucas clashed over how to progress the Star Wars series. Kurtz recalled after Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1980, Lucas became convinced that audiences no longer cared about the story; they were simply there for thrills and entertainment, and he began to deviate from the original nine-episode bible starting with Return of the Jedi, at which point Kurtz quit the series. In interviews Kurtz has expressed his dissatisfaction with Episodes VI and I.

It is a matter of public record that Kurtz's final collaboration with Lucas, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, was an expensive and fraught shoot. Records at Elstree indicate that the movie took 175 shooting days having been budgeted at 100, which forced Lucas to borrow $10 million to complete the film. Kurtz had to help direct ^[1] along with David Tomblin, Irvin Kershner, Harley Cokeliss and John Barry (who died during production of meningitis) to bring the film in on even this revised schedule and budget. Lucas visited the set in London only a couple of times.^[2] There are photos punlished of Lucas on the "bog" set consulting the production, but Kershner directed all the scenes on that set.

Kurtz's wife, Meredith, planned a the film's 'wrap party' in late August 1979 and the Kurtzes hotsed the afair. The actual completion of photography was a month later. ^{[3] [4]}

Kurtz did not leave the movie before its completion and was activly involed throughout post production through it's release in theatres in the UK and the UK. He was replaced by Howard Kazanjian for Return of the Jedi.

Kurtz and Lucas had also earlier collaborated on American Graffiti. Kurtz made the science fiction Slipstream, co-starring Mark Hamill.

1. ^ Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of The Making of The Empire Strikes Back by Alan Arnold (1980, Sphere Books)
2. ^ Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of The Making of The Empire Strikes Back by Alan Arnold (1980, Sphere Books)
3. ^ Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of The Making of The Empire Strikes Back by Alan Arnold (1980, Sphere Books)
4. ^ Info from daughter Tiffany Kurtz

• Gary Kurtz at the Internet Movie Database
• Article on Kurtz's selling of Star Wars props
• Extensive inteview with Kurtz on his career

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