Return of the Jedi’s original ending
Star Wars has been the talk once more due to Lucas’ bombshell announcement this past weekend that the series will be making its first ever Blu-ray release. Also at Star Wars Celebration V, a big con for the series, the producer of the OT Gary Kutz talked about how the toy line drove some decisions about Episode’s V and VI. “The toy business began to drive the [Lucasfilm] empire. It’s a shame. They make three times as much on toys as they do on films. It’s natural to make decisions that protect the toy business, but that’s not the best thing for making quality films,” Kurtz told LA Times.
“We had an outline and George changed everything in it,” Kurtz said. “Instead of bittersweet and poignant he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. The original idea was that they would recover [the kidnapped] Han Solo in the early part of the story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base. George then decided he didn’t want any of the principals killed. By that time there were really big toy sales and that was a reason.”
Luke would have rode off into the sunset so-to-speak like a lone gunslinger, Leia would have struggled with being Queen, and no Ewok celebration to defeating the Empire.
Feel free to read more at the LA Times, for Kurtz is pretty outspoken about the Prequels and Lucas.
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I’m glad this version didn’t make it to the final cut. To me killing off Solo later on makes his rescue seem a bit pointless.