About Star Wars Radio: Empire Strikes Back is the second in a series of radio dramatizations of the original Star Wars trilogy, and lasts for a total of five hours. It was produced and broadcast by National Public Radio as part of NPR Playhouse as a follow-up to the success of the first radio series, Star Wars (1981). The series was made with the full cooperation of George Lucas, who donated the rights and allowed the use of sound effects and music from the films. Unlike the first Radio Drama, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back follows a narrative much more closely aligned with the original film on which it is based. There are some small segments of action or dialogue which may be highlighted as treatments of Expanded Universe material, but the overall narrative does not diverge substantially from the original plot.