Synopsis:

Falling Into Darkness is a feature-length documentary on the making of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, that chronicles the behind the scenes process on the conclusion of the six-film Star Wars saga. Over five hours of footage of interviews from the cast and crew, featurettes, webisodes, outtakes, raw footage from on-set and inside the production, has all been combined and edited into an in-depth look at the process that brought the end of the Prequel trilogy to the big screen.

Intentions:

As a lot of the Making-Of and Behind the Scenes content for the prequels and this film especially are stretched and broken up on multiple discs on multiple formats and even content exclusive to starwars.com, there isn't any easy way to watch all of it without needing to switch things around. So I sought out to make a definitive documentary, in the vein of Empire of Dreams, that you could sit down and watch to understand the process behind the making of the film.

Change List:

The documentary is broken up into 5 chapters, each discussing a different part or section of the film. Chapter I - The Beginning of the End (42min) The first chapter discusses the opening battle over Coruscant and talks about the ships featured, General Grevious, Dooku, digital filmmaking, lightsabers and Obi-Wan, and his progression from Episode II and then into Episode IV Chapter II - Capital of the Republic (27min) This one is a bit more broad and kind of a catchall for a lot of stuff, but is mostly stuff on the city planet itself. Things included are Coruscant locations, Padme, Palpatine, Mace Windu and their fight, C-3PO, and finally costume and creature design. Chapter III - The Expanding Galactic War (35min) Planets, planets and more planets. The Clone Wars cover a lot of planets, and so does this section. Utapau, the Utapauns and the Boga chase dominate the first section. But Order 66 is described as well and the featured planets with Kashyyk and the Wookies taking up the backend. Chapter IV - Last Turn to the Dark Side (35min) Anakin and his turn to Darth Vader is explored in great detail here in what I think is the longest section. Anakin as a character is discussed as well as Hayden Christianson as an actor. His development as a character across the trilogy and his darkness within, character design and costuming from his Jedi robes to his horrible burns and the Vader suit itself. Chapter V - The Fires Within (21min) The last chapter covers Mustafar and the surprising miniatures that make up the planet. This is covered amazingly in "Within A Minute" so there's just a few tidbits here as well as some of the new Imperials being talked about. Reshoots at the end of production are also talked about, as it flows into the production wrap, the film's premiere, the joy from within the fanbase and the cast/crew and the conclusion of the journey of Episode I-VI.

Additional Notes:

All the featurettes from the DVDs, Blu-Rays and starwars.com were ripped and converted into a workable format. Then I made a rough outline on how to structure them, and decided on a somewhat chronological order based on the film, so that it opens on the Invisible Hand, and ends with Mustafar (basically). After that was a rough cut just placing everything togther into five chapters, and then trimming and adjusting things so that everything would flow accordingly. Then, the technical details were worked out, (cropping and framing the BR Collection footage so that it wasn't in an orange box, adding name tags to those who didn't have any, generally making sure there wasn't any repeated stuff or derivitive content, etc). Finally, the doco was exported in 720p as a lot of the content was poor upscales of SD stuff, as it made up the majority. The 1080p footage was heavily cropped, so a full 1080p was pointless in my opinion.

Other Sources:

WEBISODES One World, Two Movies Two Worlds, One Movie We Still Do A Little Bit Creating General Grevious This Weapon is Your Life Video Village Epic Designs for an Expanding Universe C3PO: His Moment to Shine Becoming Obi-Wan The Wookies Are Back B107: The Life of a HD Tape Pickups and Reshoots Bringing Creatures to Life Becoming Sideous starwars.com Exclusive Webisodes Going to the Dark Side Behind the Curtain The Journey: Part 1 and 2 FEATURETTES Episode III DVD (2005) Anakin: The Chosen One Its All For Real - The Stunts of Episode III The Star Wars Trilogy Boxset Bonus Disc (2004) The Return of Darth Vader: Episode III Preview Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-Ray (2011) Coruscant, Utapau, Order 66/Kashyyk and Mustafar Overviews The Collection: Chewbacca, Darth Vader, Tion Medon, Burnt Anakin and Imperial Officer Costumes Utapau Sinkhole, Mustafar Mountain, Kashyyk Tree, Felucia Landscape, Boga, Arc 170 and Jedi Starfighters, The Invisible Hand, Grevious Models Minatures and Maq

Special Thanks:

George