Elstree 1976

As a lifelong Star Wars fan I sat down and watched this DVD with great anticipation but other than a few positives it unfortunately fell way below my expectations and was very disappointing. As the name of the title suggests ..... Elstree, I was hoping to get an insight into the studio and get a better understanding of what it was like in 1976 working on the original film set with some behind the scenes original footage / photos etc but it didn't offer that. Having said that, I appreciate that the film was focusing mainly on the original extras and supporting actors as opposed to the studio itself and listening to each of their interviews there was some interesting stories particularly Dave Prowse but overall it just seemed to drag on and sadly became quite boring. Most of what they had to say was about what they did before been in Star Wars and what they did after. It including their appearances in the conventions which was one of the few highlights. This film had so much potential but I feel it was simply put together cheaply and in a hurry which is such a shame. If you are a genuine Star Wars fan you will find some parts of it interesting but in my opinion it's not one of the best documentary on Star Wars you will ever see.

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.

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.

The timing of this movie couldn't be better. With The Force Awakens hype at a feverish pitch, this nostalgic look back at the stories of ten individuals whose acting jobs during the summer of 1976 forever changed their lives. No one knew it at the time, but this American Sci-Fi project they were hired for would go on to be one of the highest grossing franchises in the history of cinema. While none of these actors has found worldwide success in film or had their life cut tragically short, Elstree 1976 is a touching story about their common brush with fame as pioneers in the Star Wars universe. If you're a fan of the 1977 classic, you will love this film. If you're not a big fan, but appreciate a great character driven documentary, this would also be for you. There is enough here to keep everyone happy as we travel back a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away

Maybe slightly too long (yeah, even at 100 minutes), but there's a lot of wonderful anecdotes from all of these 'walk-on' players and actors and people-behind-masks, and it's not completely about the making of Star Wars either. I think that was what pleasantly surprised me the most; not only that, the people talk about where they came from and their personal lives to an extent - all of them, from what I could tell, came from working class backgrounds, had sometimes sick/dead family members, and it was not necessarily always a 'I'm going to be this kind of actor' let alone any kind of recognizable entity - and, after Star Wars, how their lives fared.

Some kept on working in movies (there's one guy who went on to be in a number of films as the sort of 'oh, hey, background guy' in films like Living Daylights and Last Crusade), some didn't (the one actress, who barely considers herself that, found that she was more keen on getting her walk-on roles and not really seeking anything more), and some went on to being other iconic figures (Dave Prowse as... cross-walk guy?) There's also a good deal of time spent talking about fans and conventions, and the reactions to how these cons go isn't anything too out of this world (as one of them says, 95% of the people are terrific, the rest are... weird), but it adds another level on to the proceedings.

Most interesting is the bit about how there is a sort of tier system as far as people going to these conventions, with one man being interviewed (I forget his name but he's the guy that gets blown up in the X-Wing after shouting "Loosen up!" and recalls not remembering his lines out of order) saying that at one con a guy came trying to make himself into a thing when he wasn't even credited... and then this same guy, one presumes - or someone like him- is interviewed, and I mean, hey, that briefing scene on the Death Star on Yavin had a LOT of guys, you know. And meanwhile a guy like Prowse says with only a bit of bitterness that he isn't asked to conventions anymore, certainly not the official SW ones, but it doesn't seem as anything sad, like he knows he's made some bad blood along the way ...(the context, in case anyone's curious, Prowse used to be really terrible when it came to leaking info about the sequels when they were in production, to the point where he wasn't given the pivotal line in 'Empire' due to his loose lips, so that may be a reason he neglects to mention, but I digress)...

The key thing with Elstree is that you don't have to be a major Star Wars fan to see it. I'm sure it helps, and having listened recently to the 'I Was There Too' podcast with Anthony Forrest (the 'Mind-Trick' Stormtrooper, and another character cut from the final version), there's some extra things to find out about these people that make them interesting all within this context. Stylistically it's talking heads and a sprinkling of film clips, stills, (mostly from SW, and sometimes, to emphasize a character as the one neat trick, the film does a kind of back and forth loop like one might see on, of all places, Instagram, but it works as a 'here's this guy or woman').

What it comes down to is that these people would be great fun to talk to in sum, and that's the important thing. While the fandom is nice for these people, it's not everything (not even for Prowse, not anymore, or Jeremy Bulloch, the one actor interviewed here that wasn't there in 76), so in a way this is more like a series of human interest stories that happens to have as the connecting thread of 'Oh yeah, that sci-fi movie that the quiet bearded guy was directing). It works for both crowds, even as it's special up to a point, a 'good for one watch' thing.