Empire of Dreams and other extras: anyone else dissapointed?
 

I must admit, I'm a bit dissapointed in the documentary. It's more shameless self-promotion than actual documentary. It would have been nice if it was a little more objective and spoke about the negative reaction of fans to certain things, etc.

Most of the other extras have a similar tone. Some are just blatant commercials for Lucas products (the shorts on the Ep III game and movie in particular).

I DO like all the trailers, especially the oringal SW teaser. Otherwise it just seems to come up short.

I don't want to see a documentary about how Lucas raped someone's childhood in a Star Wars boxed set.

Maybe some enterprising young filmmaker can make "Bowling for Tatooine" or something and expose this evil man for who he is.

Needed some of the older Making Of doc's from the 80's.

HA HA HA HA HA. Yeah, wouldn't it be nice. I also think that in this president race, that it would be nice to see Bush speak about his negatives.

Both of which will not happen.

Shit, you "fans" really are hard to fuck'n please.

Hell, I'm not a die-hard fan, far from it. The best documentaries are well rounded- this one was pretty much a Lucas commercial and mostly boring.

I remember documentaries that ran in the 80s on PBS. One in particular about Empire that was really good. Anyone remember the name of it?

The problem is, you wont be getting much other then a one sided documentary. Considering how they don't want to highlight any sort of negative buzz about the changes. You sure as hell aren't going to see anything like that here.

I wasn't talking about that. Instead of jumping to conclusions and threadcrapping, how about asking a question?

Thread crapping? Last I recall, you were asking for people's opinions here. Was anyone dissapointed? I wasn't. And considering that it's been so long and offers a lot of info about the making of, regardless of it actually being a little one sided and not containing material you weren't expecting to see anyways. It seems strange to complain about it.

and I do believe you were talking about that
My take on it is that you would have wanted to hear about the NEGATIVE reaction about the changes. Something Lucas is rather proud of and doesn't care about the fans reaction to. So it was never going to be there to begin with.

Are the best documentaries well rounded? Any documentary will be skewed by the story teller. Take a look at varies out dvd "making of's" and you will notice that they are typically all one sided in favor of the film. There are few that touch on the low points of productions or studio/director creative differences. But for the most part, they are all favoring the film.

I did enjoy the extras. I prefer to have new stuff for extras rather than stuff I have already seen.

Trailers are okay, but I've seen them so many times, they aren't special.

Jack, you did not win me over by insulting me right off the bat. This is probably the third post I've made in this forum.

You automatically assumed I was talking about the fan's reaction to the changes in the movies. I was not. In fact I was talking about everything related to the original three films during their release- especially the sequels, the mixed reception to Jedi, the oversaturation of the marketing etc.

Well then I apologize for the insulting you matter. I suppose I was jumpy since there has been a couple of threads about the extra's and a few folks complaining that it wasn't what they wanted and so forth for no really good reason. I can understand what you mean now after further explaination of it. That seems like a good thing to cover. But I think Lucas has those colored glasses on that don't let him see what some may consider "Oversaturation" or mixed reception of jedi.

I felt very satisfied after seeing the documentary.

To be honest, I like the feature-length documentaries a lot more than having a lot of separate interviews, behind the scenes footage, photo galleries, effect tests, etc.

I noticed that it used footage from the 1980's making-of docs (most promenently, the Return of the Jedi one). Sure, the vintage ones were OK, but for every "cool" item, there's about 10 minutes of boredom.

Although, it would be neat if Lucasfilm released a 5th "The Star Wars Archives" DVD with the 3 specials (with remastered clips) and finished deleted scenes some time down the road.

I still think George Lucas should put the Holiday Special on DVD, but with commentary by Mike Nelson and the rest of MST3K's cast.

I thought the documentary was very well done. I was entertained for 2.5 hours so I can't complain. No matter how they put the doc together, someone won't like it.

Sure there's more stuff out there. We all know it. I'm sure, down the road, there will be another release with more archived materials.

Ha, Jack abrasive! :p

But yeah, to expect the documentary to highlight how fans are pissed about this and that is inane, no company would ever do that. I can't think of a single documentary included with a film that spent time in a documentary discussing how fans didn't like the movies, or didn't like the changes. Even the best docus, Heartso f Darkness or 12 monkeys, just give you very detailed explanations of how the films were made, but hardly badmouth the film or the reaction to it.

Granted, the Episode I documentary felt more in depth then this one, but I still thought it was quite good. It showed a lot of the troubles the production had, as opposed to just saying how everyone loved each other. I don't expect them to talk about the fan hatred over the changes since, well, I do think that that's a very small minority.

Once again, I never mentioned "fan changes" so I'm still not sure why this has come up. (Obviously it's a common element of the other threads).

I just wished they covered a bit more of the "pop culture" movement of the movies, the fan movement inbetween movies, etc. The huge marketing tie-ins and collectable markets. Some crazy stuff going on during the early '80s connected with the movies. There was really little to none of this.

Well, you actually said you wish they'd talk about the negative fan reactions to the films, which, well, means changes.

if not, I'm not really sure what you mean, or are we talkin Ewoks.

I agree, stuff on the fandom of Star Wars would've been interesting, but that isn't really what your first post says at all.

Ha, isn't that the same mistake I made also? assuming he ment the changes to the films. :p

Guess I wasn't the only one who jumped to that conclusion based on your description.

It was good, if a little too long. I did also like seeing some of the raw, extended takes (with more dialogue) of familiar scenes. And at least in these documentaries, you get to see some of the original scenes before they were alterered -- Boba's voice, old Anakin's spirit, etc.

I thought Ben Burtt would have been better suited with a full featurette of his own than being part of the commentary track. I would've loved to see him visually demonstrate how he created Darth Vader's breathing sounds, or show how James Earl Jones' voice was converted into Vader's. Even with his commentary tracks on Episodes I & II, he claps himself on the back too much. His signature sound effects are important in the Star Wars lore as anything else, but more demonstration and less talk would have been more fulfilling.

And I also wish they had some sort or roundup of the supporting actors that played the rebels and imperials. David Prowse obviously had fallen in bad terms with Lucas. How can Darth Vader not be in this?

I was actually surprised they put in the negative aspects of Lucas' writing ("You can write it but you can't say it..." and Lucas' directing ("Faster and more intense...")

If "Return of the Jedi" got a lukewarm (no pun intended) reception by the public, it certainly isn't reflected in the box office receipts as ROTJ actually made more than the fan-favorite ESB.

I think in general, RoTJ is pretty much just as loved as the rest of the series by more casual and mainstream fans.

No, it doesn't, but I can see how, in light of the current reaction of some fans to the changes, you might assume such.

As Eric said in an earlier post, he was referring (among other things) to the mixed reception that ROTJ received during its original theatrical run. Most fans at that time still went to see it (many saw it multiple times -- it was Star Wars, after all), but some were rather vocal in their opinion that it was the weakest film of the trilogy, and that it had been "dumbed down" to attract more of the children audience, and thus to increase demand for tie-in products.

Quite frankly, that's the biggest bunch of bull I've ever heard. This is a fantastic documentary. But, there's always someone who won't be satisfied, so why bother with folks you can't please.

As for fans, the last thing anyone needs or wants is to hear from a bunch of sniveling, pathetic fans who won't ever be happy. To hell with the fans. Overall, they've become such a pathetic lot that they should just be ignored.

I agree and deleted scenes.

While I am disappointed in the lack of deleted scenes, I was surprised to see so many in the Empire of Dreams doc, which I finally finished this morning. I found this to be a very good documentary, and it didn't pull it's punches "too" much. That comment by Lucas about becoming what he was fighting was pretty interesting, and the fact that he allowed to air helps to dispel any Orwellian characteristics detractors assign him.

I haven't delved into the commentaries yet, but this set seems to be a pretty good placeholder until the big one in '07. At the price I got it for, I'm not really as disappointed as I was expecting to be.



And May the Force Go With You :)

I don't think you could please the die-hards even if you had Lucas himself come over to their houses personally and tell them all the stories surrounding the shooting of these films.