I need to interject here
danoyse said:
That was because all 3 LOTR movies were filmed at the same time--aside from pickups. There was no re-signing Orlando to a sequel to get a bigger part in LOTR due to fan appeal.
Not entirely correct. The cast was called back for each movie to refilm scenes or make changes as Jackson saw fit. If he wanted to change the outcome of certain scenes or change the scenes or give chars different or more exposure, he could have. If he wanted to bring more attention to Legolas or Aragorn or make Gimlee toss the ring, he could have. But he didn't.
But it did happen with POTC
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POTC is not an established franchise with as well known of a story base os LOTR, Star Wars, Spiderman, Batman, or X-Men. It does not have either the history or fanbase that these other franchises have.
And again, Luke was set as the hero to face Vader from the first movie.
Not entirely correct. Lucas did not write all three movies intending for them to be a trilogy. In fact, he didn't expect to make more than one film when he filmed ANH. when making sequels he could have completely changed the focus of the film or the roles of the characters and made Han the big hero who slays Vader and the Emperor, but kept the balance he originally established. The characters, their roles, and their place in the storyline all stayed consistent.
After the wild success of Empire Strikes back, Lucas could have realized that Han Solo was the most popular and loved character and potential cash cow and could have rewritten ROTJ to be all about him (of course the title would then be different). He could have had Luke die in the battle with Jabba the Hutt while Rescuing Han, who would then fight a duel with Vader, pitting the Falcon against his tie-fighter, blast him out of the sky (he was justified after the way Vader tormented him in the previous film) and then blast Palpatine's tower and been the big hero, but that didn't happen. Han overshadowed Luke, Han had "it" while Luke did not, yet Luke's role wasn't compromised.
Also on that note, who ended up with the better career after Star Wars?
Harrison Ford was already a bigger actor than Mark Hamil and during the course of making Star Wars' original trilogy already had other big roles which propelled him forward, including Raiders of the Lost Ark.