Empire of Dreams: The Story of the 'Star Wars' Trilogy

I watch this movie as both entertainment and education. If there was ever a film that so thoroughly covers the making of a classic, bears all and leaves you wanting it to be longer than its 2 1/2 hour length, it is this.

First, it offers a breakdown of Lucas' roots, inspirations and student films. It glides over his personal life, barely mentioning how he met and married his wife, and tastefully omits the divorce Lucas endured as a result of his investment of time into Skywalker Ranch, instead of his marriage. The editor allows us to hear Lucas begin to talk about it, and then fades it off. It was painful the first time, and he probably should't have to relive it with his fans.

The same Bonus Disc contains a shorter documentary that features today's best movie directors discussing how SW influenced them. There is not a finer documentary made about the process of film-making.

The documentary almost takes a detour into propaganda when THX and Pixar come up, but then we realize that Lucas was the guy all of these entities was born from, or developed from. Today's movie editing software is born from Lucas' struggle to make 1970's equipment and people work for him.

A must-viewing for anyone serious about the craft or the profession.

This documentary about the making-of the Star Wars trilogy makes one realize how much of a miracle it was that the original film was made at all. A myriad of problems beset George Lucas and his collaborators during production and few predicted the film would be as big as it became.

Empire of Dreams (2004) is a generally good documentary. It goes in-depth with the production of the first film especially. The best asset is the plethora of archive footage, which is wonderful to see.

I'm not sure if this is the definitive behind-the-scenes SW. The majority of Empire of Dreams (2004) focuses its attention on Star Wars (1977) and lavishes a good deal of attention on The Empire Strikes Back (1980), virtually ignoring Return of the Jedi (1983). You're probably better off with JW Rinzler's Star Wars books, which give each film in the trilogy equal attention and go into an almost day-by-day record of the productions.

Empire of Dreams is also quite uncritical and there are several moments when as much extreme praise is showered upon George Lucas as possible, bordering on nauseating. Marcia Lucas, whose contributions to the film were important, is quickly glossed over. She and David Prowse (the physical performance of Darth Vader) were not interviewed due to having rather rocky relationships with George. There's also a plug for those wretched special editions, with their intrusive CG additions and narrative tampering.

Is this necessary viewing? Not really, but Star Wars fans will enjoy the behind-the-scenes footage.

Like most DVD fanatics I picked up the "Star Wars" boxset last Christmas when it came out. I was disappointed, to be honest. Apart from the fact that much more could have been included in terms of extra content (did we need a video game demo taking up space on the fourth disc?) it also didn't include the original versions of the films - which, as far as I know, are those that practically everyone prefers.

Nevertheless this insightful and exhaustive documentary - which covers the entire pre-production through post-production phase of each original "Star Wars" film - almost redeems the DVD collection. Although it is fairly "full of itself" as IMDb commentator Bob the Moo notes, it DOES feature a good wealth of information - including some facts I hadn't heard about before (e.g. Jedi was given a fake working title so fans wouldn't sneak onto the set).

If you're a fan of "Star Wars," definitely check this out - if you don't want to dish out the cash, it's playing on A&E right now. But in my opinion it's not as great as it could have been because it falls victim to George Lucas' "cleanness" - we're led to believe "Star Wars" is the most important and defining event of the past century and that turned me off a bit.

The production was maybe a bit amateurish, but nonetheless I thoroughly enjoyed this. I don't usually watch "making of" docs because it pops the fantasy bubble of the movie. But I'm glad I made an exception here.

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.