Toy sales stopped `Star Wars` dark ending

Melbourne: The budding toy-business has stopped George Lucas from ending his `Star Wars` on a sad and dark note says the film`s original producer, Gary Kurtz. Kurtz said that Lucas had originally planned a much darker ending to `Return of the Jedi`-the last instalment in the series.

"We had an outline and George changed everything in it," the Courier mail quoted Kurtz as telling Los Angeles Times. "Instead of bittersweet and poignant he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. "The original idea was that they would recover Han Solo in the early part of the story (Solo had been kidnapped at the end of Empire) 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," he said. "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," he added. ANI