Watch: C-3PO & R2-D2 Hosted Documentary 'The Making Of Star Wars' From 1977

nullNow that everyone’s losing their friggin’ minds and creating genius memes that exploit one of last year’s most emotionally devastating scenes after laying eyes on the brand new teaser for “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens," it might be fun to go back to the very beginning of the saga, with the very first making-of documentary produced about it, simply called “The Making of Star Wars." 

The cast and crew of the first ‘Star Wars’ movie speculate about a possible sequel, but they probably could not have guessed just how big “George’s silly kids movie” (a nickname that the English crew tacked on to the movie now known as “A New Hope”) would turn out. In fact, if you’d tell Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford that they’d return for a sequel almost forty years after the first movie, they’d probably think you were talking crazy.

For those who’ve seen their share of vintage documentaries on the making of the first film, there’s not much new material to see in “The Making of Star Wars.” We get the usual production footage of Hamill, Fisher and Ford, while George Lucas looks like he’s constantly two seconds away from having a full-blown panic attack. What really makes the documentary special is the fact that it’s hosted by R2-D2 and C-3PO.

It’s fun to see the documentary mentioning Lucas’ many influences while creating A New Hope, from old westerns to the “Flash Gordon” serials. But what’s missing is footage from a buttload of Akira Kurosawa films, including “The Hidden Fortress," which gave Lucas the idea to focus on two side comedy relief characters while telling his story in the first place. You can watch the 50-minute documentary below. [Open Culture]