Film #043 - Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy (2004)
Viewed February 12, 2006
Star Wars is my favorite film of all tme and the Star Wars Saga is pretty much the touchstone for everything I enjoy from comics to video games to toys, etc. etc. But Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith came out last year and there are no Star Wars-related narrative films that I haven’t seen. (Yes, that includes the two Ewok movies, The Star Wars Holiday Special and all four of the “features” edited from the Droids and Ewoks cartoon shows.) If it weren’t for the documentary Empire of Dreams, I don’t think I could have gotten any Star Wars material into this project and that would’ve been a darn shame.
Empire of Dreams had a lot to live up to. It had to somehow outdo what had been up until that time the greatest “making of Star Wars” documentary, From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga (1985). While going into much greater depth on some aspects of the productions, Empire of Dreams doesn’t quite replace From Star Wars to Jedi, but compliments it very well.
The best thing about Empire of Dreams is the sheer number of people who appear on screen. Not only the often-seen actors like Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, but even Harrison Ford (well known publicity-hater) and original producer Gary Kurtz. Literaly dozens of people from throughout the history of the original saga appear to give their views on the process. Unfortunately, there are also uneccesary additions, such as Walter Kronkite and Bill Moyers, whose banal comments do nothing to add to the story.
The narration by Robert Clotworthy is fine, but I couldn’t help but feel that the project would have been better served by having a proper “Star Wars” voice in there, as From Star Wars to Jedi did with Mark Hamill.
There is quite a bit of behind-the-scenes footage here, much of which I have not seen before. The best of these (like footage showing a much more energetic lightsaber duel from Return of the Jedi) highlight the ways the films could have gone. I was also pleased to see the original Star Wars text crawl, sans the “Episode IV” tag. But most of the alternate takes, flubs, and such don’t add much and there was no exciting footage akin to the Jabba the Hutt scene shown during From Star Wars to Jedi (and since incorporated into Star Wars).
The biggest negative of Empire of Dreams is that its status as an officially sanctioned documentary means we hear very little of the various controversies that surrounded “Star Wars” throughout the years. There is no mention of the racist charges put forth due to the original film’s lack of black characters. The section on the “Special Editions” makes no mention of the negative reaction to many of Lucas’ decisions on that project. Gary Kurtz speaks, but we never even hear about his split with Lucas. These issues have been addressed by Lucas in the past, so it would have been nice for him to take this opportunity to answer them directly.
As officially documentaries go, Empire of Dreams does a good job of covering many aspects of the original trilogy’s path to the big screen. But given the fact that much of the character arc that defined the original trilogy has been overshadowed by the events of the prequels, in effect meaning that the original trilogy can no longer stand on its own untethered from its preceding chapters, the story seems incomplete. Perhaps when the big, six movie box set inevitably comes out one day, the whole story will be told as it should, as the story of all six films.