Title: Star Wars: A Musical Journey
Directed By: Tippy Bushkin
Copyright: 2005
Length: 70 minutes
Reviewed by Sarah the Nerd
This DVD came free with my Revenge of the Sith soundtrack -- quite a pleasant surprise, although I'd already heard a little about it. It features 70 minutes of John William's Star Wars music, set to videos from all six films; they look absolutely gorgeous, and a couple of them feature concept art, as well.
The best thing about this apart from the music, though, is that Ian McDiarmid narrates it, in a slightly friendlier version of Palpatine's storytelling voice. Essentially, he tells the entire story in order, starting from The Phantom Menace with "Duel of the Fates" and "Anakin's Theme," going on to Attack of the Clones with "Across the Stars" -- Anakin and Padmé's theme -- then Revenge of the Sith with "Battle of the Heroes." Then we get the "Imperial March," a Tatooine music video, a Luke/A New Hope one, a Leia one (featuring some concept art I hadn't seen before), one featuring both Obi-Wan's death and the TIE Fighter attack, "Yoda's Theme" from Empire Strikes Back, and then "A Narrow Escape," featuring both Han and Obi-Wan going through an asteroid field (plus some clips of the speeder chase on Coruscant, and a few more shots of ships in space). As the saga comes to an end, we have "Luke and Leia's Theme," the Forest Battle from Return of the Jedi, and the "A Life Redeemed" Anakin/Vader video (with Ian McDiarmid's most dramatic narration beforehand; although that's not a bad thing), and lastly "A New Day Dawns" (and Ian signing off with, "May the force be with you -- always!").
My only complaint, really, is about the lack of clips and music from Revenge of the Sith. It's only got one music video all to itself, and doesn't tend to show up in the places you'd expect it to (in the Luke and Leia video, for example). It's because the DVD was released before Revenge was, and clearly they didn't want to give too much away before the movie actually hit the cinemas. It's a pity, but still -- the Revenge of the Sith/"Battle of the Heroes" video was designed to tease fans, not spoil them completely, and it did its job.
Generally, this DVD does a fantastic job of binding all six movies together via the music, and making it into one big story. Any fan of the Star Wars music -- and who isn't? -- really needs to get ahold of this; it's a fantastic tribute to both the Star Wars movies and the music that was such a big part of them.
