Celebration V Guest List: Gary Kurtz Is Showing Up?

[lazypadawan]

Let's see, a few days ago we found out that Anthony Daniels will be taking a break from Star Wars In Concert to drop by Celebration; I couldn't imagine the guy missing it.

Then Official Pix jumped the gun by announcing Gary Kurtz as a guest before he formally signed on the dotted line; the announcement was quickly pulled but Philip Wise posted on Rebelscum's forum that for all intents and purposes, Kurtz will be there. Plus he promised a forthcoming announcement on an "oh, cool, he's signing??!" kind of guest. Uh, who could that be?

Kurtz did appear at Celebration IV and he's appeared at cons in Europe for years but I think this is the first time he'll be in the same building as Papa George at like the same time in ages :O. Interesting.

Comments

[may-child.livejournal.com]

Oh, yay. Gary "I Was Lucas's Babysitter" Kurtz showing up at a celebration, no doubt to further exploit Lucas Derangement Syndrome and stir up the bedwetters. Hopefully he won't have the bad taste to cast himself as Lennon to Lucas's McCartney while Lucas himself is there, but then, Kurtz has been pretty shameless in the way he's bashed the SEs (feeding into the ridiculous "moral outrage" over Greedo shooting first), "confirmed" that TPM is full of racist stereotypes, and claimed that the PT "sucks" because "Lucas surrounds himself with fawning yes-men." Bedwetters worship that self-important butt-wipe, and use circular logic to both render his word unimpeachable ("He's never been caught in a lie like Lucas has") and to "prove" that he "kept all the childish and silly stuff out of ANH and ESB" ("When he stopped being SW's producer, we got Ewoks, Jar Jar, and poop and fart jokes").

I'm not enthused. I wish Kurtz would just shut his self-aggrandizing face, and return to the obscurity that he, "the real talent and genius behind ANH and ESB," has languished in for the past 20-odd years. FGS, he was such an inept producer that Jim Henson wanted to remove his name from the credits for "The Dark Crystal," and Lucas -- yes, Lucas, who Kurtz supposedly "babysat" -- had to step in and save "Return to Oz" from being shut down...the director, Walter Murch, never forgot how Lucas personally convinced the bigwigs at Disney to let the filming continue even though Kurtz's incompetence had resulted in it going badly over-budget and off-schedule. Murch talked about it some 20 years later in an interview, and not once did he mention Gary "Genius" Kurtz. Nor, for that matter, does Irvin Kershner when talking about ESB, though according to bedwetter folklore, Kurtz "protected" Kersh from Lucas and "collaborated" with Kersh to "make ESB great behind Lucas's back."

Of course, the loathsome Chris Gore, aka Professional PT Basher Extraordinaire, introduced Kurtz as "the man behind ANH and ESB and the classics 'The Dark Crystal' and 'Return to Oz.'" Say wha-? Could Gore's nose have been any browner? Good Lord I detest him.

[darth-pipes.livejournal.com]

If Kurtz was so great a producer, he would have done a hell of a lot more over the last thirty years since ESB. If he were so great, somebody would have gotten him to produce their films. It's very revealing that no one has.

[darth-eldritch.livejournal.com]

With all the drama that's happened off screen over the years, it's no wonder George Lucas divorced himself from Hollywood. It was a very good move on his part.