Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy is a 2004 documentary directed by Kevin Burns, with narration by Robert Clotworthy. It is centered on the making of classic Star Wars trilogy (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi) and their impact on popular culture.
Should not be confused with the video game Klonoa: Empire of Dreams.
Tropes:
- The '70s: The documentary opens with a description of the decade that Star Wars emerged in, the age of the Pet Rock and disaster films, hippies and political scandal, and a general malaise over the country.Narrator: It's hard to remember a time before Star Wars. The world was different then. There were no cell phones or personal computers. The internet was years away. Even home video had yet to catch on. The space race was over. Americans felt deeply mired in the present. It was a time of economic inflation and rising oil prices. And the nation had grown cynical about its heroes and its leaders.Richard Nixon: Well I'm not a crook!Walter Cronkite: In our country, Watergate tore us apart. And then we had the Vietnam War on top of that, which was dividing the country like nothing else had. It was a terrible decade of great storm and violence in our history.Narrator: On the big screen, Hollywood's view was equally grim. The films of the early 1970s were gritty and often downbeat, a reflection of America's social and political upheaval. Instead of old-fashioned heroes, the screen was dominated by hard-nosed antiheroes who broke all the rules.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: At the end, George Lucas notes the irony of how he fought hard to stay independent in Hollywood and avoid becoming part of the studio system, but in the end he ended up redefining Hollywood and became the system itself.
- Control Freak: Being an independent filmmaker, Lucas was used to doing a lot of the tasks on set himself, causing him to clash with many of the crew, especially his cinematographer. He also had to personally take charge of the ILM team when they had failed to produce any quality shots.
- The Determinator: Faced with an appalling early cut of the film, ILM failing to produce the special effects, and the Fox board of executives threatening to pull the plug, Lucas was in a position that might have made any other director decide to cut their losses and stop. Instead, he became determined to ensure, hell or high water, that his movie would get released.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The documentary celebrates Lucas' well-earned success and independence, but makes it clear that it came about due to many titanic struggles and came at great personal cost at times.
- End of an Era: The late 1960s and early 1970s marked the end of the old studio system in Hollywood. The executives who formed the studios retired and sold them to corporations who were unfamiliar with the movie industry beyond making what demographics wanted to see based on market research. They began going through film schools to find new talent, which allowed for the emergence of up-and-coming directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas as part of the New Hollywood movement.
- Flat "What": During the part about Empire, director Irvin Kershner describes the moment he took Mark Hamill aside and told him what the true twist ending of Empire was and Mark's reaction to it.Kershner: "You know, Darth Vader's your father." "Whaaa?"
- Foiler Footage: In-Universe. Much is discussed of the famous twist that Darth Vader was Luke's father. There was a false page in the script and Mark Hamill was taken aside to be informed of the twist only moments before filming the scene (see above). David Prowse was not told the real lines, instead saying "Obi-Wan killed your father."
- Hostile Weather: The production of A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back in Tunisia and Norway, respectively, were both beset by horrible weather early on. In Tunisia, the first day of filming was hit by the worst rainstorm in 50 years, forcing the whole crew to take the day off. In Norway, a severe snowstorm caused them to film Luke's escape from the wampa cave by having Mark Hamill simply run out of their hotel.
- It Will Never Catch On:
- Everyone believed that Star Wars would flop rather than become a game changer for cinema as a whole. Steven Spielberg was the only one of Lucas's friends who, after seeing a rough cut of the film that lacked the special effects, had any faith in it.
- Kenner Toys was caught completely off-guard and unable to fulfill the mad demand for toys by Christmas, forcing them to do an empty box campaign where children would receive action figures from pre-paid vouchers.
- Irvin Kershner had doubts when Lucas approached him to direct the sequel, thinking it would only be "the second one." He had to be talked into it by his agent.
- Loophole Abuse: Exploited by Fox. Only forty cinemas nationwide agreed to show Star Wars on its May premiere date. In order to ensure it got out, Fox insisted that cinemas wishing the book the more anticipated The Other Side of Midnight had to book Star Wars as well.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Anthony Daniels says that seeing a concept painting of Threepio and Artoo by Ralph McQuarrie at his audition captivated him and made him give it his all, allowing him to get the part. After all of the hardships in filming, he confronted McQuarrie years later and said "This is all your fault!"
- The post-production problems got so bad that George Lucas felt sharp chest pains and was diagnosed with hypertension. It was at this point that he realized he'd gotten himself into a huge mess and wasn't sure he'd be able to get himself out.
- No Stunt Double: The dangers of making of the scene where Luke and Leia swing across the Death Star chasm are discussed, since it was set 20 meters above the ground and the crew couldn't afford any stunt doubles so Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher had to do the shot themselves. Making matters worse was that stunt co-ordinator Peter Diamond nearly got injured when his harness snapped, and had to lie that it was his trousers that ripped to convince them to perform the stunt.
- Oh, Crap!: Irvin Kershner became extremely nervous when Lucas told him that Empire needed to be much bigger and much better than Star Wars.
- Permanent Placeholder: Invoked. Like David Prowse, Anthony Daniels said the lines on set. The production knew they needed to do something about Threepio's voice, and auditioned some thirty prestigious voice actors like Stan Freberg. Eventually it was decided to simply use Daniels, as his voice was already synced with his body movements and he was able to develop the voice of an over-the-top British butler.
- Race Against the Clock: Late in principal photography on Star Wars, Lucas was told by Fox that they needed to finish shooting the film in one week or they'd be shut down. Gary Kurtz tried to argue that hiring another crew would cost just as much as going another week, but Fox was adamant that meeting the date deadline was more important than the money. The crew ended up breaking into three units in order to get all of the remaining footage.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Alan Ladd Jr. was Lucas's closest ally on the Fox board and shut down any doubts by the other executives who at times wanted to pull the plug on the film.
- Special Effects Failure: In-Universe. Lucas says that the first four effects shots were absolutely atrocious, and he became anxious over whether they'd even get them to work at all after ILM had spent half of their budget on just these four shots. One of the ILM model makers tries to put this in perspective, saying that "the factory has to be built before the first can of peas can be sent to the supermarket." Much of the money was used on actually setting up their workshop and building the equipment, forcing them to rely on trial and error early on in their work.
- Stock Footage: In order to inspire the ILM team, Lucas spliced together a number of dogfights from World War II in order to show what he wanted them to do. This greatly helped the team as it gave them a clear sense of the pacing needed that storyboards simply can't provide.
- This Is Gonna Suck: In one of the interview clips, Anthony Daniels humourously recalls the rough start he got getting into the C-3PO costume in the Tunisia desert and his fears afterward.Anthony: It was bad enough just putting on the costume for the first time, and within two paces, the left leg had shattered down onto the plastic of the left foot and was, gently but forcibly and persistently knifing it into the (laughs) the soft part of my foot. So we took it off, and I limped to the set with one foot, and it was then I began to panic about the days to come...
- Throw It In!: In-Universe. Irvin Kershner and Harrison Ford share how the iconic "I love you." "I know." exchange came to be. Han's reply was originally "I love you too," but neither Kershner nor Ford felt it fit the character. After multiple takes, Kershner told Ford not to think about it and just say whatever came naturally.
- Title Drop: In the very last line of the documentary."For George Lucas, what began as a quest for creative freedom became a philosophy, a cultural phenomenon, and an empire of dreams."
- Troubled Production: In-Universe, the documentary purposefully aimed for a "warts and all" approach to the history of Star Wars and thus it does not gloss over the turbulent productions of A New Hope and Empire nor the sacrifices Lucas made as a result of his films (e.g. quitting the Directors Guild after they heavily fined him over the lack of opening credits for Empire and also tried to fine Irven Kirshner for his participation, his divorce with Marcia Lucas just as Jedi wrapped production, etc.).
- Villains Never Lie: Upon reading the line "I am your father," James Earl Jones immediately thought Vader was lying and wondered how they were going to play it out.
- Visible Boom Mic: One bit of behind the scenes footage has Mark and Harrison excitedly asking if they got the shot right, only for Lucas to say the mic was in frame.
- Weight Woe: Carrie Fisher was concerned about her weight early in the filming of Star Wars. While doing the swing stunt, she was worried that they would miss and flatten against the wall, thinking the crew would go "Nope, still too tubby. Let's bring in Jodie Foster!"
- Who Writes This Crap?!: Mark Hamill shares one of the lines from his audition that he's never forgotten because of just how nonsensical it was. Carrie Fisher also mentions that they repeatedly told Lucas "You can write this stuff but you can't say it."Mark, 1976: Fear is their greatest defense, I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust and what there is is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault!Mark, 2004: I read that line and thought "Who talks like this?!"
