Star Wars: Empire Of Dreams
Given my rekindled enthusiasm for Star Wars thanks to the Gotterdamerung overtones of Episode III, I got given the all five other Star Wars films for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. The original trilogy now comes in a deeply snazzy boxed set which contains a bonus disc of extra material. The major chunk of this is the making-of documentary “Empire Of Dreams”, which is a couple of hours long and describes the almost-heart-attack inducing lengths George Lucas had to go to in order to get the first movie made, and the problems that success brought with the following sequels. Whereas most documentaries and featurettes (how I hate that word) are an asinine waste of time, Empire Of Dreams does a great job not only describing how Star Wars seemed like a complete disaster every step of the way until almost the day it was released, but also provides a great context for quite how radical a departure it was from the prevalent gritty filmic realism. They’ve managed to get all the major players commenting on the film’s making, with Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher in particular turning in some good quips. It’s a documentary that’s been painstakingly assembled with a lot of love, and it’s a testament to its effectiveness that it recaptures the magic of Star Wars arrival even when we’ve been franchised to death by it.
As a sidenote on Episode III, I’m pleased to note I’m not the only one who thinks the Emperor sounds like an evil Quentin Crisp…
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3 Responses to “Star Wars: Empire Of Dreams”
Ben G
June 26th, 2005
Heh - amusingly my bessy mate Jake has just this moment emailed me saying he has all the new Dr Who on tape for me to watch when I get back to Blighty in August! On a month long visit to see family and friends. Can’t wait. Booze, pretentious conversation and Dr Who ahoy!
Chris
June 27th, 2005
Nice one Chris. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Ben G
June 27th, 2005
Ahhhh Chris; if you were still in Blighty you could have seen the recent series of Dr Who and just how good Sci-Fi can be!
No I`m not taking the piss!!
This was among the best Tv I`ve ever seen, let alone Sci-Fi!!!