Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy is a 2004 documentary that sets out to answer a question most people assume they already know the answer to: how did Star Wars happen? The film runs two and a half hours and was directed by Kevin Burns, with narration by Robert Clotworthy. It was built as a bonus disc for the DVD box set of the Star Wars Trilogy, released on the 21st of September 2004. But its ambitions go well beyond a making-of featurette.

  The documentary assembles George Lucas himself, every major surviving cast member, the visual effects artists at ILM, and voices from outside the film world entirely. Journalist Walter Cronkite sits for an interview. So does Bill Moyers. Their presence signals something unusual: this is not just a celebration of a movie franchise. It is an attempt to place Star Wars inside a broader story about culture and politics.

  What made a scrappy science-fiction film, shot in difficult conditions in 1976, become something that news anchors felt the need to speak about? And what did it cost to get there? The answers are more complicated than the mythology suggests.

• 2. George Lucas Before Star Wars

  ›

  The documentary begins not with lightsabers but with the earliest chapter of George Lucas' career as a filmmaker. That choice tells you something about how Kevin Burns wanted the story framed: Star Wars did not emerge from nowhere, and the man who made it had a specific trajectory before 1977.

  Lucas is interviewed at length, and the documentary traces his path from those early years through the complicated decisions that led him to pursue the Star Wars project at all. The film is strictly chronological in structure, divided into five parts, and the first part establishes that the creative and professional context Lucas came from shaped everything that followed.

  The documentary's decision to open with Lucas' pre-Star Wars career also sets up a structural contrast. By the time the film reaches the production difficulties of 1976, the viewer already understands how much Lucas was putting on the line.

• 3. Making Star Wars in 1976

  ›

  The production of Star Wars in 1976 is described in the documentary as complicated, and the people who were there say so directly. The documentary draws on interviews with the film's production supervisor Robert Watts, art director Norman Reynolds, and stunt coordinator Peter Diamond, all of whom were on set.

  Richard Edlund, John Dykstra, Dennis Muren, and several model makers from ILM, including Steve Gawley, Paul Huston, and Lorne Peterson, describe the visual effects work in detail. Joe Johnston served as visual effects art director. The scale of what ILM was attempting, and how uncertain the outcome looked at the time, runs through their accounts.

  On the studio side, Gareth Wigan and Alan Ladd Jr., both former executives at 20th Century Fox, speak about what it looked like from inside the studio. Their perspective on the institutional risks taken during that production period contrasts with the craftspeople's accounts of what was actually happening on the ground.

  Archive footage captured during production was remastered for the documentary. One clip showing Harrison Ford on set with Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher was later altered in the Disney+ version to remove a cigarette from Ford's hand.

• 4. The Cast Speaks

  ›

  Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher all appear in interviews, speaking as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia Organa respectively. So do Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca; Kenny Baker, who played R2-D2; Anthony Daniels, who played C-3PO; Billy Dee Williams, who played Lando Calrissian; and Warwick Davis, who played Wicket W. Warrick.

  James Earl Jones, who provided the voice of Darth Vader, is also interviewed, though the physical performance inside the Vader costume was David Prowse, who appears only in archive footage. Frank Oz, who performed Yoda, speaks in the documentary as well. Stuart Freeborn, responsible for makeup and special creature design, describes the practical challenges of building these characters.

  Archive audition footage adds a different dimension. William Katt auditioned for Luke Skywalker. Kurt Russell and Perry King both auditioned for Han Solo. Terri Nunn and Cindy Williams both auditioned for Princess Leia Organa. That footage sits inside the documentary as a reminder of how many different versions of the trilogy might have existed.

  Sir Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Peter Cushing, who played Governor Tarkin, appear only in archive footage; neither gave a new interview for the film.

• 5. Culture, Politics, and Impact

  ›

  Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers are not the first names you would expect to find in a Star Wars documentary. Their inclusion reflects a deliberate choice by Kevin Burns to examine the trilogy through a sociological and political lens, not just a cinematic one.

  Leo Braudy, a professor and cultural historian at USC, also gives an extended interview. His presence alongside the journalists suggests the documentary was trying to account for why the films registered so far outside normal audience expectations and how they fit into the world of 1977 and beyond.

  Steven Spielberg, a filmmaker and close friend of George Lucas, appears to speak about both the personal and the professional dimensions of what Lucas built. Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, provides a writer's perspective on the sequels. Composer John Williams, sound designer Ben Burtt, and stop-motion animator Phil Tippett speak to the layers of craft that accumulated across the three films.

  Sid Ganis, former marketing director for Lucasfilm, and Charles Weber, former president at Lucasfilm, address the institutional machinery behind the films' release and reach. Howard Kazanjian, who produced Return of the Jedi, and Gary Kurtz, who produced both Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, describe the evolution of the production across the trilogy.

• 6. Two Versions, One Documentary

  ›

  The two-and-a-half-hour cut of Empire of Dreams was built for the DVD box set, but a separate, shorter version premiered on the A&E Network later in the fall of 2004. That television version ran at around ninety minutes, cutting out nearly an hour of material from the original.

  The film was shot in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Its Emmy nomination for Outstanding Sound Editing in the non-fiction category recognized the craft work that went into assembling the documentary's audio, much of which drew on archival production recordings.

  The Disney+ version of the documentary introduced additional changes beyond just hosting the film on a streaming platform. The duel between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader was edited to show a newer version of that scene from Star Wars, and production footage was remastered for a cleaner visual presentation. One notable alteration was the removal of a cigarette from Harrison Ford's hand in an on-set clip. Bill Hader, later known as a comedic actor, worked as a production assistant on the documentary.