Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
In what way are his issues over Lucas's mistreatment of him not burning bridges?

The accusations are entirely against not-Prowse, and paint Prowse in the better light. I am (and, for years, have been) entirely in Prowse's corner in this.

No, they wouldn't. It was differently contracted, gross vs net, full stop. They would not hesitate to screw over anyone who negotiated for net (which, I should point out, is still wrong, and arguably even more wrong).

Prowse had well over 40 acting credits before Star Wars, let alone Return of the Jedi six years later. Further, Prowse was acting throughout the trilogy - discounting body acting (or voice acting, which is another hot-button issue of mine) as "not acting" is a gross disservice to such actors.
Ok, first off, I never said withholding residuals over creative accounting wasn't wrong, only correcting the notion that Prowse somehow wasn't paid at all for playing Darth Vader. I have no direct knowledge of his contract regarding residuals, so the final note was speculation as I thought was clear.

Also, I never said Prowse wasn't an actor, just that it wasn't his background. I also have a lot of respect for the way he composed himself as Vader, the way he projected the character in movement is very much down to him. But I stand by the fact that he is likely not what Lucas was looking for in Anakin's final scene. I mean, just look at the pre-Jones sound footage of Prowse doing line-reads on set (and you can't say he knew he was going to be re-dubbed in those shots as by Prowse's own statements he didn't know that at the time). Even the acting credits you point out were for suit work or smaller character roles. Anakin's final scene is different than his background in acting and I find it reasonable that Lucas would have wanted to go with a different actor. I don't feel that diminishes Prowse's strengths in the role, and I apologize if you took it as a slight against the man.

Look, I'm really not in the mood for this, I'm not in anyone's corner, I don't entirely agree that Prowse was singled out for unfair treatment by Lucas, but there are differing accounts of how he got on the bad side of a few people involved with Star Wars and I don't really want to dive into hearsay, so I will leave it at this: I feel, as I always have, that Prowse was instrumental in creating one of the all time great movie characters. He always seemed like a great guy, and I had hoped that I'd be able to see him talk at a convention someday, and I'm saddened that will no longer be the case.

I will leave it there. Rest well David Prowse.