Elstree 1976 (PG) ★★★
With the recent release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, interest in the Star Wars franchise has gone up again, so it's a good time for this documentary.
In it, director Jon Spira interviews a small selection of actors who were in the very first Star Wars movie (and one who debuted in The Empire Strikes Back), but not the usual stars. He talked to David Prowse, who was inside the Darth Vader costume, Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett) and some of the bit-part actors and extras.
Among them are Garrick Hagon, whose role as Luke Skywalker's friend Biggs was drastically reduced in the final cut, and Derek Lyons, who was in the final scene as a guard and medal bearer. They discuss how they got into Star Wars, which at the time seemed just another job, the experience of working on it, their lives and careers, and their subsequent relationship with the franchise.
Spira apparently funded the film via Kickstarter, and it's obviously a low-budget labour of love. It's choppily edited and padded with unnecessary Stormtrooper re-enactments, and some of the interviews seem too long or too short (Prowse could be worth a film on his own). But much of what's here is intriguing, like the hierarchies of the Star Wars small-part actors even now, and sometimes even touching.
There are no extras at all on the DVD, which is disappointing; it would have been good to hear from Spira about the project.