Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy (2004)

Memorable, crazy movie

Fresh and Exciting

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Interesting and informative documentary on the original trilogy, has interviews with all the surviving creators and stars of the films, and much behind the scenes footage, anecdotes, and trivia that fans love.Pretty exhaustive and extensive look at how the films were conceived and directed, the casting process, evolution of the groundbreaking visual effects that so captured the imagination of children, the memorable music that kids hummed in schoolyards as they re-enacted their favorite characters and battles, and the costume making process for the familiar alien characters like the droids C3PO, R2D2, and Chewbacca, not to mention Darth Vader! On the original Special Edition DVD set, this is well worth watching.

SPOILERSI am a huge Star Wars fan and I had recently seen this on television. Since I had seen it I decided to comment on it. Remember, though, I had seen the television version, not the longer DVD version of this documentary. There are fun interviews in this documentary, and this includes some interesting details about the making of the first three Star Wars film. They do talk about Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, but not much. This documentary was made before Revenge of the Sith.Here is the basis of this documentary. It is basically the history behind the infamous Star Wars movies. George Lucas and the rest of the cast and crew talk about how the movies came to be. There were difficult hardships, including the intense heat in the desert sequence, from the cold winter in the snow sequence in the Empire Strikes Back. They also talk about the slew of awards that Star Wars won, and the records that it shattered.Overall, this is a fun-filled documentary to watch. Some of the facts about Star Wars are also really interesting to hear about. For example, Frank Oz, who is the puppeteer for Yoda, accidentally breaks and shatters the Yoda head, so they have to make a brand-new one. Also, in the Empire Strikes Back the crew were snowed in a hotel so Mark Hamill, who plays Luke, had to go out in the freezing cold alone. I also like the fact that the director and the producers told nobody that Vader was Luke's father. Anyway, this is an enjoyable documentary to watch if you are a fan of the Star Wars trilogy.9/10 Recommended Titles: Star Wars.

For the release of the three original (albeit updated) films in the Star Wars series, this documentary was provided as the main extra on a fourth DVD. Starting with the difficult production of Star Wars and looking at the completely unexpected success it turned out to be, we examine the making of the two sequels, the puppets, the effects and the actors with recollections and insight from cast and crew.At the start of this documentary it appeared to be heading down a very bad road where it looked at the national mood at the time the original film was being produced; it appeared to be suggesting that the film itself was a major event and was some sort of saviour of the world! Now, the influence and knock-on effect of Star Wars in the film industry is undeniable but if the documentary was going to be just a big love-in then I would have struggled to finish it. Fortunately the film manages to move away from this for the majority and the slight tone of awe and respect afforded to the films can perhaps be forgiven. Likewise the film avoids any significant dissent aside from some of the crew acknowledging that they didn't share Lucas' vision or like the film they were making (but admit they were wrong); but it brushes over things like Guinness' dislike for even the finished film and the cold direction by Lucas and never lets anyone ever share stories that could come across as damaging.However, outside of these minor complaints the documentary is an impressive look at the films in a mostly very interesting and honest way. Back stories, personal memories, personal experiences, onset trouble and footage from the production all combine to produce a story that is very interesting and full of nuggets to the point where I could easily sit and watch it again. Of course you probably need to be a Star Wars fan to care about such things but, considering this was provided as a companion to the three films, then it is more than likely playing to a friendly crowd. The involvement of so many of the cast and crew is a real bonus but I would have liked a bit more from some of them – for example I would have liked to hear something from Prowse, considering he thought he was a central character only to find himself totally dubbed out of the film! Lucas himself is a bit full of his own self-importance and the documentary does get better with Empire and Jedi because his contributions are reduced to make way for the other directors.The film touches on Phantom Menace but wisely says nothing of it. In fact the documentary does shed light on why Menace may have failed as a film – at one point in the writing of Star Wars, one contributor says that the Force had to be carefully written to be present but to never be too serious or heavy or it would suck the fun out of the film. This made me smile because I believe that the weight of self-importance is a major reason that Menace is lacking in entertainment value. Overall this is an impressive documentary that looks at so many issues that it will be difficult to be bored by it – sound effects, visual effects, writing, production, casting, marketing, development, studio pressures and so on – it is a must for fans and it puts to shame many of the ten minute "making of" featurettes that pass for documentaries on some dvds.

I have also seen a 90 minute version of this documentary, which was shown on the brilliant Biography channel. Although I had doubts about buying the soon to be released trilogy on DVD, the documentary has certainly whetted my appetite, and made me eager to see the complete version which will be included on the fourth disc of the set. Even for someone as knowledge about the Star Wars movies and George Lucas as I am, it was still very entertaining, and contained quite a few never before seen out-takes from all the films. The programme features the problems that Lucas had with 20th Century Fox execs (apart from Alan Ladd jnr, who greenlit Star Wars) when the movie ran over budget and missed it's Christmas 1976 opening date, the '...hippies...' at ILM who hadn't completed any decent effects shots Lucas could use, and the destruction of sets in Tunisia which halted filming temporarily. There are also interviews with most of the original cast members - even Harrison Ford who certainly doesn't enjoy doing them, which is no big secret.These edited highlights I've described, have left me hankering for more.