text: Kershner, who was an appealing directorial candidate to Lucas because of his concern for character development, was at first reluctant to direct the film. When asked by Lucas to work on the project over lunch, Kershner refused. Kershner's agent was told about the meeting and encouraged him to take the job. Kershner later discussed his motivations: "I was grabbed by the fairytale which Lucas invented and wanted to be part of keeping it alive." Of his cinematic style, Kershner has said: "I like to fill up the frame with the characters' faces. There's nothing more interesting than the landscape of the human face".
  Kershner turned down a chance to direct Return of the Jedi (1983), having spent almost three years of work on The Empire Strikes Back. Richard Marquand was eventually chosen to direct the third film in the original trilogy. Kershner stated, in retrospect, that he would have accepted an offer to direct one of the films of the Star Wars prequel trilogy had they been produced sooner, as Lucas originally estimated the first of them to be ready for release in 1988 rather than in 1999.
  Later work
  Kershner had projects that he was going to be involved with in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He signed on to direct an adaptation of I, Robot from a script by Harlan Ellison, which was never filmed. Later, he was initially hired by producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown to direct an adaptation of Eric Van Lustbader's novel The Ninja from scripts by W.D. Richter and Tom Cole, but the project was cancelled following months of pre-production.