Empire of Dreams

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy is a documentary about the making of the original three Star Wars films: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.

The original cut of the documentary ran at around two hours and forty minutes. It was cut down to around two and a half hours, with only ten minutes cut. This final version was released as the main feature on the bonus disc of the 2004 DVD release of the original Star Wars Trilogy. A shortened version of the documentary premiered on the A&E network in late 2004. This version ran at around ninety minutes, cutting out nearly an hour of content.

1 Content
2 Deleted content
3 Notable exclusions
4 Links

[edit] Content

The documentary is strictly chronological, divided into three parts, one for each of the three original Star Wars films. It was executive produced and directed by Kevin Burns and narrated by Robert Clotworthy. It features interviews with George Lucas and major cast and crew. It puts Star Wars into a sociological and political perspective by using interviews with spectators like Walter Cronkite. The documentary was shot in 1.78:1 aspect ratio.

[edit] Deleted content

In the original cut of the film, a ten minute segment was included which elaborated on The Star Wars Holiday Special and Lucas seeing a mistake in not holding full control over the Star Wars franchise. The part was cut, however, because, according to the producers, "it just didn't fit with the pacing of the film."

The official Star Wars site reported in September 2004 on Empire of Dreams. Originally there was to be some coverage of the Holiday Special, but it wound up being cut to help shorten the already lengthy documentary. Here's a relevant quote from the article:

I wanted it in the documentary to show early on how the studio could easily take control and make poor decisions once a film has proven to be a success,

Burns explains.

It showed how Star Wars could have been if mishandled. George didn't want Star Wars to become burlesqued or treated like a kiddie show. And we wanted to make a point in the documentary that this was what George was petrified would happen to Star Wars if he hadn't had taken full control.

But the footage didn't quite fit with the overall premise of the documentary and instead ended up on the cutting room floor, "until I can make a director's cut of Empire of Dreams," Burns jokes.

On a similar note, Comingsoon.net reported on the rollout presentation of the Star Wars Trilogy DVD at the Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles, where various names who worked on the DVD were in attendance, including Kevin Burns. Here's another quote from Burns regarding the Holiday Special:

So was this a "warts and all" telling of the making of Star Wars? Kevin replied, "Actually, that was our mandate. I do tell the dirty little story that the only thing we couldn't put into this documentary was the Star Wars Holiday Special. (laughter). You know, it truly didn't fit in the cut. We did have it in an earlier cut, I will tell you, and I was, 'Gosh, I really wanted [to] put that Star Wars Holiday Special [in]!' But it just didn't work in the context of the cut.

Shortly after, a certain other guest interrupted:

At that point a very familiar voice in the back yelled out,

I think the Holiday Special is severely underrated!!!

It was Mark Hamill himself, who had snuck into the back of the theater. His impromptu comment generated a lot of laughter in the audience to which Kevin added,