7. Why was the production budget of Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back under $ 25 million U.S. dollars?

At the time in 1980, Star Wars fans had no idea what an impossible task it was for George Lucas to create Star Wars Episode 5 The Empire Strikes Back. Lucas had basically no money thirty years ago. The entire financial net worth of Lucas consisted of the few millions of U.S. dollars Lucas earned from the profits of American Graffiti and the first Star Wars movie called Star Wars Episode 4 A New Hope.

After paying the staggeringly excessive federal and state income taxes from what Lucas made from A New Hope, Lucas had less than $ 30 million U.S. dollars at the time production began on The Empire Strikes Back. Lucas had no choice, but to severely limit the cost budget of The Empire Strikes simply for the reason that Lucas didn't have much cash relatively speaking.

Lucas could have gotten further financing from the 20th (Twentieth) Century Fox movie studio, but this would have meant giving Twentieth Century Fox more control and a greater profit percentage from the revenues earned by The Empire Strikes Back. Lucas has always been fiercely independent, which meant Lucas wanted to keep film studio interference at a minimum since Lucas blamed Hollywood studio executives for ruining the final cuts of his THX 1138 movie and American Graffiti.

Many, many fans complain today that the Star Wars classic trilogy is no where near as stunning, epic and grand as the all perfect Star Wars prequel trilogy. The reason the classic Star Wars movies look terrible when directly compared to the Star Wars prequels is because Lucas had to film the Star Wars classics on very, very extremely tiny production budgets.

The monetary costs of A New Hope was around $ 11 million U.S. dollars. If you adjust this financial amount for today's inflation, it equals about $ 45 million U.S. dollars. The production budget of The Empire Strikes Back was around $ 25 million U.S. dollars, which adjusted for inflation is worth about $ 70 million U.S. dollars now. The budget cost of Star Wars Episode 6 Return of the Jedi was about $ 33 million U.S. dollars. When you take inflation in to account the Return of the Jedi film budget equals approximately $ 75 million U.S. dollars today.

You can't make a mesmerizing and mind warping blockbuster Hollywood movie for under $ 175 million U.S. dollars. In fact, some major motion pictures have production budgets exceeding $ 250 million U.S. dollars. So you can see that The Empire Strikes Back looks awful when compared to the Star Wars prequel trilogy because The Empire Strikes Back is a simpleton B movie when compared to the uber great brilliance of the Star Wars prequels.

You also have to remember special effects technology was horrendously primitive at the time the Star Wars classic films were created. Lucas couldn't make the astounding Jar Jar Binks or General Grievous with the crap special effects of the early 1980's. Nearly all fans are disappointed with the results of The Empire Strikes Back when it is unfortunately compared to the spectacular Star Wars prequels. There's nothing we can do about it because Lucas didn't have the necessary money or special effects techniques to produce awesome Star Wars movies before the rise of photo realistic computer animation in the 1990's.

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