@@Voltar There were many reasons why it went over budget but look at the finished product . Kurtz influence was a reason for that. The best 2 movies in the series are with him as producer.
The month after this was broadcast I was in London with my school for a week long tour of the city. We went to Selfridge's store where I found without having known about Star wars, the exhibition of costumes, sets and props from the Empire Strikes Back. The trailer was being played from a video on a TV though I only caught the end of it. I saw Star Wars figures and there I bought my first five spending nearly all of the spending money I had with me. Later that week we were taken to the cinema to see a film but weren't told what we were to see. So we sat down in the Odean, St Martin's Lane and one came Walt Disney's "The Black Hole"!
R.I.P David Prowse, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, Irvin Kershner, Gary Kurtz, Yaphet Kotto, and George Carlin I miss David Prowse, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, Irvin Kershner, Gary Kurtz, Yaphet Kotto, and George Carlin so much and May The Force Be With David Prowse, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, Irvin Kershner, Gary Kurtz, Yaphet Kotto, and George Carlin in Heaven. David Prowse as Darth Vader will always be the best Star Wars villain, Carrie Fisher was brilliant as Princess Leia, and Peter Mayhew was awesome as Chewbacca. Irvin Kershner along with Gary Kurtz both did an excellent job with The Empire Strikes Back, The Empire Strikes Back is the most impressive and best Star Wars film, and The Empire Strikes Back as well as Star Wars and Alien are my all time favorite sci-fi films. I also love both Yaphet Kotto and George Carlin. Yaphet Kotto was a great film actor in Live and Let Die and Alien, George Carlin was the best American comedian of all time, and Jammin' in New York from 1992 is my favorite George Carlin special.
Filming in the UK was definitely cheaper than in the States back then, but like the Superman films, Santa Claus the Movie... Many films were made in Pinewood and Shepperton Studios because of the amazing technicians at the time. England had some of the best film technicians in the world, and that is shared by many great artists and directors even today...
Thanks for sharing this I watched a Star Wars documentary this morning and it featured a couple of clips from this programme its nice to see the full show
That wasn't such a huge spoiler as the fact that Luke is being obsessively sought by Vader is said in the opening crawl, and that he is heading into a trap set by Vader is made pretty clear to the viewer early on. Luke himself even knows it's a trap, as Yoda straight out tells him his friends are being used as bait to lure him before he leaves Dagabah. They also might not have worried so much about letting that spoiler go because they knew they had the "father" of all shocking plot twists ready to spring on the unsuspecting viewers.
Fantastic view! I appreciate your uploading this. It give all the aspects. Episode was NOT a slop! Non of them have been. My favourite will always be Return of the Jedi Episode VI!
@@j.vonhogen9650 yeah I could never get the constructicons, devestator, because they were too much to buy each and every piece to put together to combine the giant decepticon robot from the transformers. Some kid had brought it to school for show and tell. Kool toy but so much money from me to have
I was around. Absolutely hated disco. But not as much as I later hated rap. So now I look more fondly upon the 70s and disco isn't so annoying (when you consider the alternatives).
Daniel Preece yeah i know. i was being somewhat dishonest- there is some disco that i really love, and think is as brilliantly written as anything else. for me it's like that with literally every music style- a few things i truly love, and the rest seems like crap. i think the earliest rap was incredible, but it gradually went downhill and somewhere in the late 90's, it completed its evolution into it's final fecous form
BrooklynPerson30000 Disco livez on, thru Electronic Dance Muzak, ( EDM ) such azz House, Techno, Jungle, or Trance, azz xamplez. Giorgio Moroder, ( Producer 4 Donna Summer ) must b proud! I still LOVE hearing DISCO INFERNO. BURN, BABY, BURN!!!!
1:38 "...why the profits for those films don't come back to Britain"... because they are financed, produced, and distributed by America. They rent British sound stages because they are bigger, but are forced to hire British crews by labor union rules, and the production costs are cheaper anyway. Britain gets their money on the front-end, and they get nothing from the back-end because they did not assume any financial risk. James Cameron shot Aliens in Britain, and hated it - the crews showed him no respect and nearly mutinied. The Brit crews thought Star Wars and Aliens were going to be crap movies, and beneath their dignity. Why should they get any profits?
From what I got from some old interviews Lucas and the DP constantly butted heads. Can’t imagine working with someone who was always against you. Probably contributed to George’s hatred of being on set.
@@WriterusAeternus Yes, I think that was the case during the 1st Star Wars (New Hope) with DP Gilbert Taylor. I never heard or read of any friction with Peter Suschitzky the DP on Empire, but by then there was no excuse - Star Wars was huge, and the director was older and experienced. Still, I have a lot of reverence for British cinematographers - they are some of the best in the world.
It's 2016 and they still make Star Wars movies in the UK. They speak English, aren't constrained by Hollywood rules, and are somewhat less expensive to hire. They also filmed some Marvel Cinematic Universe films there, but production for those has since moved to Atlanta, albeit at a partially-British owned studio there.
Keep in mind that the then chancellor George Osbourne provided Disney with a 'very' generous tax break, just to secure production over here. Personally I don't agree with this as Disney aren't strapped for cash, but I'm delighted that they're making use of our talents and locations in the U.K.
Speilburg said the best technicians are British and its just a easier place to work in. In fact he wanted buy a huge property just for his production company Amblin in Herts but the government turned him down
Maybe I missed it, but they never mentioned that a big reason all of those movies were shot in the UK was the Lord Eady plan that gave a lot of those profits back to their US producers for filming in the UK with a mainly UK crew. In 1980 or 81 that offer was discontinued and according to John Landis, his film An American Werewolf in London was the last American film to qualify for the program.
21:37 For those curious how that pop musical movie they are talking about turned out, it bombed massively at the box office. It made only a tenth of its $20 million budget.
wow , a very sober programme that is a must see for Star Wars fans and a wake-up call to modern generations visiting the cinema. Those who do the special effects still don't get their propper share of the profits and the losses in film flops is still about the same even though budgets are over ten times that of the 1980's. When it has cost far more to make the movie Gravity than to land probes and rovers on Mars ,you have got to wonder just how stupid the movie industry has become. The space industry is cheaper than so called holywood.
Kershner is dissing American-English here, not English spoken by the British. He’s saying in other words - “fortunately the English speaking Brits understand what passes for English in America”.
"The technicians who made the film, saw none of those profits." Were these technicians used to getting a percentage of the action from the British film industry, such as Horizon Pictures, Hammer Films and the like? If not, that would be a terribly loaded statement, singling out foreign productions for a "sin" also committed on the home front.
Right? The UK crew was a pain in the ass to work with with their union BS about taking a break every hour. James Cameron faced the same BS when filming Aliens, the UK crew actually held back progress on the movie with their entitled shit. Also, the people responsible for the FX started Lucasarts and ILM, both funded by Lucas. These fucking UK commies should stfu, the americans gave them jobs with making movies.
@@sonykroket you're a tosser. They made some of the best films of that era. Who cares if they had more breaks. You yanks are just corporate bootlickers.
"You can't stop the music, but you can stop the Village People and that's the only good about this movie" review at the time. though I guess nothing ever really stops the Village People
Ha ha! They were talking about how to promote Can't Stop the Music, a disco film released in 1980 at the exact moment disco died. Apparently even with all their publicity plans, the public did stop the music. I think that Star Wars thing did all right, though.
"what passes for English...in my country" (3:45) -- director Irvin Kirshner dared say. And in his audio commentary on the DVD/Blu-ray, I remember him saying he wanted all the movie's bad guys to sound British and all good guys American. Did he have something against the Brits?
I used to love Michael Rodd's voice and hair when I was growing up. That's my most intelligent thought on this program - about as intelligent as Harrison Ford's remark about tea. Ford really did look as though he thought everyone else was stupid other than himself.
My take on Ford's comment alluded to him thinking it as a silly question that got a silly answer.Not arrogance.Not claiming you are wrong.As it is an opinion and there is no right or wrong or answer.
Of course, Michael Rodd's preamble around 10 minutes in about the studio funding the cost of the movie, isn't quite right when it come to Empire, as George Lucas himself put up most of the money for the film, with negotiated bank loans later on in the production. Now off to find Rodd in Screen Test.
+ytubeanon Acting jobs for Henry Winkler were few and far between because he was so associated with his character on Happy Days. She didn't want the same thing to happen to her because of her association with Leia. Unfortunately, it did.
I loved seeing the original rotoscoped lightsabers, they look much better than the newer digitized ones that they overlaid by Lucas' request in the special editions. The old ones actually looked more real to me, because they used the vintage technique. The digital ones look sterile and almost like a cartoon blade has popped into the real world, even in the new ones, although they did a great job with Kylo's making it spark and all. In that sense, it looks awesome in digital form.
Not entirely true. There are decent versions of the laserdisc release floating around aswell as more recent amateur made but fairly professional looking digital transfers from copies of the 35mm originals used in cinemas at the time. Not the HD quality you expect these days but miles and miles better than the VHS copies. Additionally there is the fan-made despecialized edition, where the best availible sources has been painstakingly combined into HD versions closely resembling what you are looking for. Search for laserdisc, silver screen and despecialized editions in the torrent search engine of your choice.
Very cool show, interesting watching a program from my youth and seeing now the real impact. Seeing as how UK studio's are still used I would say thing's worked out :).
True but there’s also a different mentality, sensibility. Indy 1 to 3 filmed in the UK err Indy 4 filmed in the States. I’ve worked in the UK and the States. Both are great but oddly enough there’s less talking in the UK and more doing. Also oddly enough more confidence and less bragging. But this is massive generalization.
When Kirschner says the crew seems to enjoy being there and is into the work I wondered how many of them were from Star Wars the original film. Many of them thought the whole thing was rubbish. I wish I knew how they felt after the film came out and blew everyone away. 😂
risk = reward unless your a banker where you offload the risk on to taxpayers. Not all films can be "smash" hits. interesting documentary thank you for posting it.
Not naïve since the point of the show is to explain why Britain is a key player in the creation of successful movies but can't hold onto the profits. They provide talented labor, but not enough of the financing, distribution, or ticket-buying.
Daniel Preece It can't hold on to the profits because it never put up the money. Britain puts up the cash, Britain gets the profit. Until then, all that (brilliant) British talent is just on the sheet as 'employee'.
I find "so cute" all this "British nationalist" talk about the "blue collar" workers of the Film industry, all coming form a 2nd rate ex-Imperial Power. I guess they didnt complain to where the profits were going when they used African slave labour over two hundred years in the Sugar industries...
+Tokiofritz not as naive as seemingly missing the entire point of the episode, which is to explain exactly why that happens. They explain what you're talking about multiple times throughout the show.
Adywan, thanks for bringing this to my attention, great video. Will you finish ESB:R before the sun goes supernova? Should I plan to see it when I become a senior citizen?
What the fuck is the deal here? A foreign film company pays British craftsmen to build individual set pieces to the tune of £70k and that is somehow a loss for Britain? Months or even years in production, providing steady employment for countless British technicians and laborers and that's a bad thing for Britain. If anything the Americans should be bitching about how their jobs were outsourced out of the country. I'm seriously confused here.
fascinating program ! the bit about Hollywood going bust was interesting as Hollywood is in danger of going bust again with some of the dull stuff they are doing !
That's why Hollywood is hedging its bets on streaming subscriptions to shoulder the costs and advertisements of their newest wares. We used to get TV series on the big screen; now they're back on the small screen.
I love that we have a bunch of NYC accents when talking about music production in Britain. I had to look it up, because I had never heard of it: "Can't Stop the Music" was a complete turd. It was one of those 8/10 that flop. Spent $20M, grossed $2M. Today, it has 4.1/10 on IMDb and 7% on Rotten Tomatoes. It even got several Golden Raspberry awards (Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay).
Admiral Ackbar: It's a trap! Leia: Hold my magnitude... Not sure that Superman should count as the big hit of 1979 when it opened in 1978, even in December? It still counts as 1978, especially since this special was made in 1980, which means... Every Which Way But Loose was 1979's big hit???? Yoiks.
Harrison said the 0.4% profit he got from ticket sales (not merchandise) made him a million dollars over night with that he said he tried other movies because of the money. Get the million and you can just about do whatever you want.
I don't understand why David Prowse wasn't given the script that told Luke he was his father. Lucas didn't tell anyone that Luke and Leia were twins until the moment it was sprung on them. John Williams said that he had already written music for a torrid love scene that had to be thrown away. There are surprises and then some. it's hard to write these twists but still, Prowse should have known.
Why should Prowse had known? The secret was kept between Lucas, Kurtz, and James Earl Jones (post production). Better for story security. Look what happened to Return of the Jedi. The Endor scenes had to be filmed under the monicker "Blue Harvest" to keep the press away.
So glad ESB was added to my life. What a complete blowaway this movie was to me. I got trembles when I was able to see it again with others outside the theater.
You can tell Gary Kurtz was integral to the quality of STAR WARS...he and Lucas parted ways after EMPIRE and the quality went down
@@Voltar
There were many reasons why it went over budget but look at the finished product . Kurtz influence was a reason for that. The best 2 movies in the series are with him as producer.
Man... Star Wars, Close Encounters, Alien, Star Trek: TMP, and ESB all within three years. Those were the days!
You forgot Superman.
@@AlexGarcia-ze4yg Yep, that one, too! Good call, Superman I *and* II happened in that same period!
@@MiloDC yup.
The month after this was broadcast I was in London with my school for a week long tour of the city. We went to Selfridge's store where I found without having known about Star wars, the exhibition of costumes, sets and props from the Empire Strikes Back. The trailer was being played from a video on a TV though I only caught the end of it. I saw Star Wars figures and there I bought my first five spending nearly all of the spending money I had with me. Later that week we were taken to the cinema to see a film but weren't told what we were to see. So we sat down in the Odean, St Martin's Lane and one came Walt Disney's "The Black Hole"!
Haha! Well at least you weren't the one to choose to see Close Encounters instead of Star Wars in 1977 like me!
2 minutes in, I hit the "Like" button, just for using the Star Wars Disco theme in there.
you listened to the whole song?
R.I.P.
Gary Kurtz
(July 27, 1940 - September 23, 2018)
One with the force now. ✌️
Edit; this aired on my 4th birthday lol April 5th 1980 👍😂
OH NO.....I had no idea
I strongly feel that Return of the Jedi would had been a better film had Gary Kurtz produced it.
I remember watching this program at 1045 on a Monday night in 1980 It was the first time I’d ever seen anything of the empire strikes back
R.I.P David Prowse, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, Irvin Kershner, Gary Kurtz, Yaphet Kotto, and George Carlin
I miss David Prowse, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, Irvin Kershner, Gary Kurtz, Yaphet Kotto, and George Carlin so much and May The Force Be With David Prowse, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, Irvin Kershner, Gary Kurtz, Yaphet Kotto, and George Carlin in Heaven. David Prowse as Darth Vader will always be the best Star Wars villain, Carrie Fisher was brilliant as Princess Leia, and Peter Mayhew was awesome as Chewbacca. Irvin Kershner along with Gary Kurtz both did an excellent job with The Empire Strikes Back, The Empire Strikes Back is the most impressive and best Star Wars film, and The Empire Strikes Back as well as Star Wars and Alien are my all time favorite sci-fi films.
I also love both Yaphet Kotto and George Carlin. Yaphet Kotto was a great film actor in Live and Let Die and Alien, George Carlin was the best American comedian of all time, and Jammin' in New York from 1992 is my favorite George Carlin special.
"The worst risk would be spraining my ankle."
- Harrison Ford, 1980
The prophecy was true...
30:43
Love seeing the snow speeders up so close. Love those craft!
Powered by forklift trucks.
Garry Kurtz rocking the Abe Lincoln look
Baberham Lincoln!
Four score and seven years ago in a galaxy far, far away...
Filming in the UK was definitely cheaper than in the States back then, but like the Superman films, Santa Claus the Movie... Many films were made in Pinewood and Shepperton Studios because of the amazing technicians at the time. England had some of the best film technicians in the world, and that is shared by many great artists and directors even today...
Thanks for sharing this I watched a Star Wars documentary this morning and it featured a couple of clips from this programme its nice to see the full show
Wow what a hidden gem and great upload! Thanks
This Is fab! I actually remember seeing this when I was 6 and it was all I could talk about at school the next day! Pure nostalgia man!!!!
Yeah I was 9 and it was on a Monday pretty late at the time
What a great video. And EMPIRE became the best of the entire series!
The production designers deserved an Oscar. Fantastic sets and the design of C3PO is genius.
Great upload thanks! The clip they use at the end is a bit spoilery "Luke its a trap!" I guess they weren't so savvy back in the 80s.
That wasn't such a huge spoiler as the fact that Luke is being obsessively sought by Vader is said in the opening crawl, and that he is heading into a trap set by Vader is made pretty clear to the viewer early on. Luke himself even knows it's a trap, as Yoda straight out tells him his friends are being used as bait to lure him before he leaves Dagabah. They also might not have worried so much about letting that spoiler go because they knew they had the "father" of all shocking plot twists ready to spring on the unsuspecting viewers.
Fantastic view! I appreciate your uploading this. It give all the aspects. Episode was NOT a slop! Non of them have been. My favourite will always be Return of the Jedi Episode VI!
Thanks for uploading this! Whoohoo! 👏🏼☺️
Remember watching this as a 9 year old boy, happy memories
Gary "Jebediah" Kurz is evidence of the Amish being creative badasses.
I wonder how that Star Wars sequel turned out.
hutprancer
Aww........
It wuz no BIG deal.
( wink, wink )
No, it rocked!
@Big Chap Starburst magazine gave a rather scathing review of TESB in 1980. I put the mag down in disbelief...
@Big Chap - I guess I was "a nobody" then, since the AT-AT toy by Kenner was way too expensive for an average kid like me in 1980.
@@j.vonhogen9650 yeah I could never get the constructicons, devestator, because they were too much to buy each and every piece to put together to combine the giant decepticon robot from the transformers. Some kid had brought it to school for show and tell. Kool toy but so much money from me to have
i often regret not being around in the 70's .. then i hear disco and i feel better
I was around. Absolutely hated disco. But not as much as I later hated rap. So now I look more fondly upon the 70s and disco isn't so annoying (when you consider the alternatives).
Daniel Preece yeah i know. i was being somewhat dishonest- there is some disco that i really love, and think is as brilliantly written as anything else. for me it's like that with literally every music style- a few things i truly love, and the rest seems like crap. i think the earliest rap was incredible, but it gradually went downhill and somewhere in the late 90's, it completed its evolution into it's final fecous form
+Daniel Preece watch the get down on netflix it combines both genres
BrooklynPerson30000
Disco livez on, thru Electronic Dance Muzak, ( EDM ) such azz House, Techno, Jungle, or Trance, azz xamplez. Giorgio Moroder, ( Producer 4 Donna Summer ) must b proud!
I still LOVE hearing DISCO INFERNO.
BURN, BABY, BURN!!!!
30:43 Harrison Ford: "The worst risk would be spraining my ankle." Ha! :P ;)
Little did he know what would happen to his leg in Force Awakens.
@@mos6507what happened to it?
"It's almost the same but with British accents" lmao Mark you're a national treasure
"Fortunately they speak English, or at least what passes for English..." 😜
@@crazyman8472 what passes for English in my country (USA)
@@armand9404 The USA is my country as well. 😎
I remember this being transmitted and how excited I was to watch that first clip of Empire. :-)
Me too, still remember recording this programme back in April 1980.
1:38 "...why the profits for those films don't come back to Britain"... because they are financed, produced, and distributed by America. They rent British sound stages because they are bigger, but are forced to hire British crews by labor union rules, and the production costs are cheaper anyway. Britain gets their money on the front-end, and they get nothing from the back-end because they did not assume any financial risk. James Cameron shot Aliens in Britain, and hated it - the crews showed him no respect and nearly mutinied. The Brit crews thought Star Wars and Aliens were going to be crap movies, and beneath their dignity. Why should they get any profits?
From what I got from some old interviews Lucas and the DP constantly butted heads. Can’t imagine working with someone who was always against you. Probably contributed to George’s hatred of being on set.
@@WriterusAeternus Yes, I think that was the case during the 1st Star Wars (New Hope) with DP Gilbert Taylor. I never heard or read of any friction with Peter Suschitzky the DP on Empire, but by then there was no excuse - Star Wars was huge, and the director was older and experienced. Still, I have a lot of reverence for British cinematographers - they are some of the best in the world.
Great Video! Thanks for the upload
Imagine that intro on television today.
Terrific! Thanks for uploading this.
Great video thanks for sharing. Harrison Ford at 30.40 'the worst thing that could happen is that I break my ankle'...........Eerily prophetic.
Han: The worst thing that could happen is that I break my ankle...
The Falcon: ight imma head out
Imagine the fan videos if this clip was the first everyone in Britain saw of Empire and the internet existed
It's 2016 and they still make Star Wars movies in the UK. They speak English, aren't constrained by Hollywood rules, and are somewhat less expensive to hire. They also filmed some Marvel Cinematic Universe films there, but production for those has since moved to Atlanta, albeit at a partially-British owned studio there.
Keep in mind that the then chancellor George Osbourne provided Disney with a 'very' generous tax break, just to secure production over here. Personally I don't agree with this as Disney aren't strapped for cash, but I'm delighted that they're making use of our talents and locations in the U.K.
Speilburg said the best technicians are British and its just a easier place to work in. In fact he wanted buy a huge property just for his production company Amblin in Herts but the government turned him down
Great video, thanks for uploading. Reading How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, some face to place to names here from the book for sure.
Maybe I missed it, but they never mentioned that a big reason all of those movies were shot in the UK was the Lord Eady plan that gave a lot of those profits back to their US producers for filming in the UK with a mainly UK crew. In 1980 or 81 that offer was discontinued and according to John Landis, his film An American Werewolf in London was the last American film to qualify for the program.
21:37 For those curious how that pop musical movie they are talking about turned out, it bombed massively at the box office. It made only a tenth of its $20 million budget.
Great documentary.. i wish there were more like this that focus on the finances of movie making
Can't believe they actually let a journalist on that Millennium Falcon set piece while they were still working that day
i bet every kid in britain sat through all that talk for 120 seconds of early ESB! :)
wow , a very sober programme that is a must see for Star Wars fans and a wake-up call to modern generations visiting the cinema. Those who do the special effects still don't get their propper share of the profits and the losses in film flops is still about the same even though budgets are over ten times that of the 1980's. When it has cost far more to make the movie Gravity than to land probes and rovers on Mars ,you have got to wonder just how stupid the movie industry has become. The space industry
is cheaper than so called holywood.
Long time ago in a British far, far away...
"Britain"
this trailer works till today and i watch this movie 30+ times...
I so would have watched this all the way through just to see the footage from Empire at the end.
Absolutley wonderful!
'Fortunately, they speak English, or what passes for English in my country.'
HAHAHAHAHA
The word is "realize", English genius.
Kershner is dissing American-English here, not English spoken by the British.
He’s saying in other words - “fortunately the English speaking Brits understand what passes for English in America”.
I never quite got what he meant by that comment, it’s pretty ambiguous.
@@TheHitchDawk yes but it could also be interpreted as a diss to the British.
swifty1969 or to be taken another way that they speak proper English and not slang, as most Americans believed blue-collar workers would.
"The technicians who made the film, saw none of those profits."
Were these technicians used to getting a percentage of the action from the British film industry, such as Horizon Pictures, Hammer Films and the like?
If not, that would be a terribly loaded statement, singling out foreign productions for a "sin" also committed on the home front.
Right? The UK crew was a pain in the ass to work with with their union BS about taking a break every hour. James Cameron faced the same BS when filming Aliens, the UK crew actually held back progress on the movie with their entitled shit. Also, the people responsible for the FX started Lucasarts and ILM, both funded by Lucas. These fucking UK commies should stfu, the americans gave them jobs with making movies.
@@sonykroket you're a tosser. They made some of the best films of that era. Who cares if they had more breaks. You yanks are just corporate bootlickers.
@@TheStarBlack lol I'm not american, dumbass.
Pure Partridge....Michael Rod, what a legend!
I can remover watching this when first shown - petrified at the thought of my favourite film at the time - Star Wars, having a disaster of a follow up
You were just 35-odd years ahead of your time, with that concern ... 😒
Why are those rebel troopers boarding the Falcon? What cut scene could it be?
From then to now 2023 the money that film franchise has generated is completely staggering a testament to alan ladd jr !!!!!!!
Theyre talking about " can't stop the music" like its going to be a big hit.
Valerie Perrine & the Village People, how could it possibly be bad?
"You can't stop the music, but you can stop the Village People and that's the only good about this movie" review at the time.
though I guess nothing ever really stops the Village People
I guess not enough gay men turned up to watch it.
"If Lord Grey's epic, Raise the Titanic, is the success he believes it will be..."
RUH ROH. 😱
(at least it had a great John Barry score)
Ha ha! They were talking about how to promote Can't Stop the Music, a disco film released in 1980 at the exact moment disco died. Apparently even with all their publicity plans, the public did stop the music. I think that Star Wars thing did all right, though.
To paraphrase that one suit: "People would rather dance to disco than to see a movie about disco".
"what passes for English...in my country" (3:45) -- director Irvin Kirshner dared say. And in his audio commentary on the DVD/Blu-ray, I remember him saying he wanted all the movie's bad guys to sound British and all good guys American. Did he have something against the Brits?
I heard that too.
I used to love Michael Rodd's voice and hair when I was growing up. That's my most intelligent thought on this program - about as intelligent as Harrison Ford's remark about tea. Ford really did look as though he thought everyone else was stupid other than himself.
My take on Ford's comment alluded to him thinking it as a silly question that got a silly answer.Not arrogance.Not claiming you are wrong.As it is an opinion and there is no right or wrong or answer.
They showed a heck of a long clip *and* it was of the climax of the film!
My god this brings back memories
Of course, Michael Rodd's preamble around 10 minutes in about the studio funding the cost of the movie, isn't quite right when it come to Empire, as George Lucas himself put up most of the money for the film, with negotiated bank loans later on in the production.
Now off to find Rodd in Screen Test.
Carrie Fisher's comment about becoming the Fonz of space was eerily prophetic.
+Manny Plimken Yeah I didn't get that, I know who the Fonz is, but what does it have to do with her?
+ytubeanon Acting jobs for Henry Winkler were few and far between because he was so associated with his character on Happy Days. She didn't want the same thing to happen to her because of her association with Leia. Unfortunately, it did.
Carrie Fisher = Negative Nelly. Always moaning about some aspect of work or life. Did she ever enjoy anything? I wonder.
She's a bipolar depressive type. She clearly uses that type of humor to this day to cope.
Daniel Preece
She'd of liked dis D!
I'd haveta watchout 4 Solo, tho. Dat SCOUNDREL!
1:47 “…and why films like that may not be made for very much longer.”
Well that aged well…
I loved seeing the original rotoscoped lightsabers, they look much better than the newer digitized ones that they overlaid by Lucas' request in the special editions. The old ones actually looked more real to me, because they used the vintage technique. The digital ones look sterile and almost like a cartoon blade has popped into the real world, even in the new ones, although they did a great job with Kylo's making it spark and all. In that sense, it looks awesome in digital form.
Very true.
It's also annoying because you can't get the original triology in HD quality. You can only watch them on old VHS tapes.
Not entirely true. There are decent versions of the laserdisc release floating around aswell as more recent amateur made but fairly professional looking digital transfers from copies of the 35mm originals used in cinemas at the time. Not the HD quality you expect these days but miles and miles better than the VHS copies. Additionally there is the fan-made despecialized edition, where the best availible sources has been painstakingly combined into HD versions closely resembling what you are looking for. Search for laserdisc, silver screen and despecialized editions in the torrent search engine of your choice.
AvariceUntied you can get the originals as HD. Fans saw to that. Do a web search. 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🌍🌍🌍🌍
Very cool show, interesting watching a program from my youth and seeing now the real impact. Seeing as how UK studio's are still used I would say thing's worked out :).
Saw Empire in theatre before Star wars 1980 at 10. :)
4:12 today the reporter would need guardrails and a safety harness... and a signed waiver for the lawyers
Dat some funky-ass music, Jack!
it was cheaper to shoot there than in the states, end of story
So true. lol
True but there’s also a different mentality, sensibility. Indy 1 to 3 filmed in the UK err Indy 4 filmed in the States. I’ve worked in the UK and the States. Both are great but oddly enough there’s less talking in the UK and more doing. Also oddly enough more confidence and less bragging. But this is massive generalization.
When Kirschner says the crew seems to enjoy being there and is into the work I wondered how many of them were from Star Wars the original film. Many of them thought the whole thing was rubbish. I wish I knew how they felt after the film came out and blew everyone away. 😂
guess everybody thought the sequel was going to bombed at the box office
30:50 "...the elements that make them good are the characterizations..." Kurtz should have called Lucas up and 1998 and reminded him of that.
31:04 fits as well, ...but then it fits to a lot of new movies aka CGI fests.
Someone should have told Disney that.
Someone should have told you that all movies are a gamble.
Brilliant!.. Look at Rod ontop of the Millennium Falcon..
risk = reward unless your a banker where you offload the risk on to taxpayers. Not all films can be "smash" hits. interesting documentary thank you for posting it.
The real Alan Partridge. :-D
31:51 Major spoiler back in a day :)
What was the spoiler?
Marwood well it coulda been seeing Lando walking with the imperials, with Leia and then as prisoners, I guess
Your not kidding...and a month before release. !! What a time ..
Michael Jones
Nope...Luke saber battling Vader.
@@dcb1138 And Lando working with the Empire. A whole previous segment was established for that surprise twist.
OMG the beginning scene looks like footage in the queensryche album operation mindcrime the part where he's loading the gun
timeless movie
A bit naive to bring up how much profit goes to America. Whoever puts up the money gets the profits, it's that simple. Great upload!
Not naïve since the point of the show is to explain why Britain is a key player in the creation of successful movies but can't hold onto the profits. They provide talented labor, but not enough of the financing, distribution, or ticket-buying.
Daniel Preece
It can't hold on to the profits because it never put up the money. Britain puts up the cash, Britain gets the profit. Until then, all that (brilliant) British talent is just on the sheet as 'employee'.
I find "so cute" all this "British nationalist" talk about the "blue collar" workers of the Film industry, all coming form a 2nd rate ex-Imperial Power. I guess they didnt complain to where the profits were going when they used African slave labour over two hundred years in the Sugar industries...
winterfell_forever
Ur, a genius!
+Tokiofritz not as naive as seemingly missing the entire point of the episode, which is to explain exactly why that happens. They explain what you're talking about multiple times throughout the show.
Adywan, thanks for bringing this to my attention, great video. Will you finish ESB:R before the sun goes supernova? Should I plan to see it when I become a senior citizen?
What the fuck is the deal here? A foreign film company pays British craftsmen to build individual set pieces to the tune of £70k and that is somehow a loss for Britain? Months or even years in production, providing steady employment for countless British technicians and laborers and that's a bad thing for Britain. If anything the Americans should be bitching about how their jobs were outsourced out of the country.
I'm seriously confused here.
1:23 ,"Star Wars was made in Britain."
YES, MADE RIGHT HERE IN THE UK!
Now I can see the inspiration for Alan partridge.
31:08 Prophetic. I love Mark Hamill's voice.
Mrs. Skywalker
I think Mark Hamil, iz da reason, dat Luke Skywalker, iz my favorite STAR WARS character.
I wonder if they ever released the movie.
That planned film series for Watership Down didn't turn out that way did it sadly! It did have a TV series however.
The commentator mentioned American films may not be made in Britain for much longer. But that seems to have turned out differently.
Let's see. 8 more Star Wars movies, much of the MCU...
Excellent.
1:33 Eight movies and 40 years later...all made in Britain😂😂
32:06 Billy Dee Williams was a cool lookin' dude back then.
fascinating program ! the bit about Hollywood going bust was interesting as Hollywood is in danger of going bust again with some of the dull stuff they are doing !
Brandon now!
They LOVE 2 do BS.
DATZ HOLLYWEIRD....
BUTT often not ntertainment.
SMH
That's why Hollywood is hedging its bets on streaming subscriptions to shoulder the costs and advertisements of their newest wares. We used to get TV series on the big screen; now they're back on the small screen.
32:13 - Princess Leia doing her best Admiral Ackbar impersonation.
No investment in any industries from banks in the 80's other than north sea oil.
Why British industry went down the pan.
Thatcher is why.
I love that we have a bunch of NYC accents when talking about music production in Britain. I had to look it up, because I had never heard of it: "Can't Stop the Music" was a complete turd. It was one of those 8/10 that flop. Spent $20M, grossed $2M. Today, it has 4.1/10 on IMDb and 7% on Rotten Tomatoes.
It even got several Golden Raspberry awards (Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay).
16:36 - 'Dreamer' (1979)
..I didn't realise Alan Partridge presented this documentary...😂
was cool as fuck seeing inside echo base love it
Admiral Ackbar: It's a trap!
Leia: Hold my magnitude...
Not sure that Superman should count as the big hit of 1979 when it opened in 1978, even in December? It still counts as 1978, especially since this special was made in 1980, which means... Every Which Way But Loose was 1979's big hit???? Yoiks.
STAR WAR.
( and ... cut ... that's a RAP )
Months Later ...
LUCAS : Wait, that should be plural.
Decades later ...
DISNEY : Whoo-Whooooooo.
Gary Kurtz should be running Disney Star Wars
Harrison said the 0.4% profit he got from ticket sales (not merchandise) made him a million dollars over night with that he said he tried other movies because of the money. Get the million and you can just about do whatever you want.
I don't understand why David Prowse wasn't given the script that told Luke he was his father. Lucas didn't tell anyone that Luke and Leia were twins until the moment it was sprung on them. John Williams said that he had already written music for a torrid love scene that had to be thrown away. There are surprises and then some. it's hard to write these twists but still, Prowse should have known.
You want the truth!? Go ask the emperor himself, George Lucas.
Why should Prowse had known? The secret was kept between Lucas, Kurtz, and James Earl Jones (post production). Better for story security. Look what happened to Return of the Jedi. The Endor scenes had to be filmed under the monicker "Blue Harvest" to keep the press away.
Prowse wasn't told because he was notorious for leaking information to the media.
An early presenting gig for Alan Partridge.
Hello, and welcome to this St-AR-HARRRRRRRR... Wars program.
I'll grab my coat...
Henry Jones Jr. Remarkable.
So glad ESB was added to my life. What a complete blowaway this movie was to me. I got trembles when I was able to see it again with others outside the theater.