Elstree 1976

This is really good if you're a sad geek like me! Full of stuff you won't see in the usual documentaries and I really enjoyed it. Also it's actually quite funny in the sense that the cast could have come straight from Extras. If this had been made before The Office I would be convinced Ricky Gervais based it on this.

I'll make my review of this film short and sweet and without much care to finesse the details. I usually like documentaries about people, and a movie about the extras of Star Wars should have been right up my alley. Unfortunately, the film focused on the lives of few extras, some of whom were interesting and some of whom were not. I found a few of the anecdotes of working on the actual film or conventions amusing but there was an awful lot of rambling on by people who I could care less about. I could care less about some guy playing squash with Kiera Knightly's father, or about the guy who had a backache and ended up taking too much Valium. While I often find the stories of regular people interesting,this put far too much focus on people telling mundane details of their lives and careers. A better movie would have been made by interviewing more people and including more interesting details, or alternatively, to follow the lives of one who had a particular unique story or path of this life. You might like this if it covers one of your very favorite favorites, but if you want something more than just filler, i don't recommend it.

Track down a group of people who aren't famous but millions of people would give their right arm to have been in 1976 and interview them. In case you hadn't realised it these people had parts large and small in the original mega smash Star Wars. How fascinating it would have been then to hear their stories about being on the film, how they got into it, what role they played, their memories of the life changing moment... instead what we get is way way too much waffle about their mostly uneventful lives. I'm 10 minutes in and not heard one interesting thing. The opening sequence has the great idea of introducing the interviewees with their action figures but because the 1970s action figures look nothing like the people who played them you gave no idea at all who or what they did... except 'Dave' of course. 20 minutes in now and still nothing interesting or even Star Wars related. I'm going to skip through the rest in the hope it picks up. Ok. 25 minutes in, things start to get a bit more relevant. Someone starts to talk about Elstree. Let's see how this goes. Now we might actually find out who these people are. Anecdotes are starting. The first 25 mins was just a waste of time. False start I'm afraid 27 minutes and we're back in the realms of obscurity and nothing much to tell. Hang in Dave's just said he got invited to lunch with Alec Guinness and George Lucas. Ok I think you get the point. This is slow paced and not very imaginative film making. It could have been 60 minutes long, but probably stretched out for financial reasons. I could have made a much better movie than this if I'd had the access. We have Greedo... not heard anything from him interesting. We have an XWing pilot. Nothing interesting heard yet. Storm Troopers... tales of smoking breaks and their reluctance to be called in to shoot because there was a heatwave in 1976. 30 mins in starting to get some stories now. And so it goes on. What I'd say to conclude is that the film is mostly just underwhelming... not many interesting stories and the people telling them mostly could not be bothered to take part when they were there. But it still makes you wish you could have been one of them. Watch from the 30 minute mark and save 30 mins of your life.

Interesting story from original Starwars actors stories on set and how they give back signing autographs for fans and when I went to a celebration the Stars I met had great stories to tell.

Well, after reading the pouty petulance of half a dozen butt-hurt sci-fi nerds in this forum, I figured a grown-up ought to weigh in.

This is a great movie. Yeah, it has "Star Wars" in the deck. No, it isn't really about Star Wars. It has that in common with life.

Elstree 1976 has a novel premise: let's sit down and talk with several people who had uncredited bit parts in one of biggest smash hits in history. What is it like to have had a tiny, expendable role in a huge cultural event?

In other words, it's not really about the movie. It's more about that old Patricia Rozema line: "Isn't life the strangest thing you've ever seen?" This is a meditation on living, working, hoping, striving, failing, changing your mind, and growing old. The interviewees are engaging, funny, personable, and wholly aware they're "nobody". And a little bemused that anybody wants their autograph, or to interview them. And refreshingly grateful for that, every last one.

In sum, Elstree 1976 is a pleasant evening spent with people not much older than those of us who saw Star Wars first-run, talking about things people our age can understand.

I like Star Wars. I went into this expecting another rehash of Star Wars lore, which would have been mildly entertaining. What I found was something much rarer than that. If you're more than half an inch deep, you'll appreciate it.