History of Star Wars

This is a history of the creation of the Star Wars saga.

Basic outline of history



 * Inspiration for the Original Trilogy
 * Star Wars
 * The Sequels
 * The Star Wars Holiday Special
 * Merchandise Marketing
 * Other Shows
 * Expanded Universe Rejuvenation
 * The Prequel Trilogy
 * Future Endeavors
 * Effects of Star Wars
 * Fandom
 * Culture

Before Star Wars
Although George Lucas had made a name for himself among some industry insiders for his work at USC, it was not until the release of American Graffiti in the August of 1973 that he reached stardom. The film grossed over $115 million at the box office and was dollar-for-dollar the most profitable film in the history of Hollywood at the time. Lucas' profit participation in Graffiti earned him over $7 million. Lucas was now a millionaire and one of the most sought after young directors in the world.

Alan Ladd, Jr., then the head of Twentieth Century Fox, saw a smuggled print of American Graffiti before it was released in theaters and was determined that Fox was going to be the next studio to profit from Lucas' genius.

Lucas would later profit from an upcoming star in that movie: Harrison Ford. Star Wars would further place Ford higher into stardom.

Influences


Many different influences have been suggested for the Star Wars films by fans, critics, and George Lucas himself. Lucas acknowledges that the plot and characters in the 1958 Japanese film The Hidden Fortress, directed by Akira Kurosawa, were a major inspiration. Lucas has said that the movie influenced him to tell the story of Star Wars from the viewpoint of the humble droids, rather than a major player. It also played a role in the conception of Darth Vader, whose trademark black helmet intentionally resembles a samurai helmet.

George Lucas has often said that his original idea for the project that evolved into Star Wars was to remake the Flash Gordon movie serials from the 1930s (a "serial" is a movie shown in weekly installments of about 10-20 minutes each). The license wasn't available, so Lucas moved on to other ideas, beginning with Akira Kurosawa's film The Hidden Fortress and then Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces. Despite the plot changes the Star Wars films are still bursting with influences from the Flash Gordon movie serials, including the Rebels vs. the Imperial Forces, Cloud City and even the famous "roll up" which begins the movie.

The second major direction for Star Wars (used in the 1973 synopsis) was to use the Flash Gordon "vocabulary" to create an outer-space version of the Samurai films of Akira Kurosawa, primarily Kakushi toride no san akunin (The Hidden Fortress, 1958), Tsubaki Sanjûrô (Sanjuro, 1962) and Yojimbo (1961). Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces eventually gave Lucas a third and final major story direction, but many elements from Kurosawa's work remain, including the two bickering peasants (who evolved into the droids), and the queen who often switches places with her handmaiden. The Darth Vader-like evil general who has a change of heart at the end wears a kamon (a Japanese family crest) that looks very similar to the Japanese Imperial Crest.

Lucas had already written two drafts of Star Wars when he rediscovered Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces in 1975 (having read it years before in college). This blueprint for "The Hero's Journey" gave Lucas the focus he needed to draw his sprawling imaginary universe into a single story. Campbell demonstrates in his book that all stories are expressions of the same story-pattern, which he named the Hero's Journey or the monomyth.

Lucas has often cited The Lord of the Rings series as a major influence on Star Wars. Lucas learned from Tolkien how to handle the delicate stuff of myth. Tolkien wrote that myth and fairytale seem to be the best way to communicate morality - hints for choosing between right and wrong - and in fact that may be their primary purpose. Lucas has also acknowleged in interviews that the Gandalf and the Witch-King characters in the Lord of the Rings influenced the Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader characters respectively.

The screenplay


There are many myths surrounding the writing of Star Wars, many perpetuated by Lucasfilm and George Lucas himself. Recently, author Michael Kaminski tried to set the record straight in his book The Secret History of Star Wars, as did Jonathan Rinzler in The Making of Star Wars, both released in 2007.

Lucas' original concept was a swashbuckling space adventure movie. He says "the film was a good concept in search of a story."[7] He first tried to buy the rights to remake Flash Gordon, but was unsuccessful.

In 1971, United Artists agreed to make American Graffiti and Star Wars in a two-picture contract, though they would reject Star Wars in its early concept stages. Graffiti was made first and when it was completed in 1973, Lucas set to work on making his space adventure movie. In early 1973, Lucas wrote a short summary called "The Journal of the Whills", which told the tale of the training of apprentice C.J. Thorpe as a "Jedi-Bendu" space commando by the legendary Mace Windy.[8]

Frustrated that his story was too hard to understand, Lucas then wrote a 13-page treatment called The Star Wars, which was a loose remake of Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress.[9] By 1974, he had expanded the treatment into a rough draft screenplay, which added elements such as the Sith, the Death Star, and once more had the protagonist as a young boy, named Annikin Starkiller. For the second draft, Lucas made heavy simplifications, and also introduced the young hero on a farm, with his name now Luke rather than Annikin. Luke/Annikin's father is still an active character in the story at this point, a wise Jedi knight, and "the Force" now became a supernatural power. The next draft removed the father character and replaced him with a substitute named Ben Kenobi, and in 1976 a fourth draft had been prepared for principal photography. The film was titled "Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars." During production, Lucas changed Luke's name to Skywalker and altered the title to just "The Star Wars" and finally "Star Wars".

At this point, Lucas was thinking of the film as the only entry that would be made — the fourth draft underwent subtle changes that made it more satisfying as a self-contained film that ended with the destruction of the Empire itself, as the Death Star was said to achieve; possibly this was a result of the frustrating difficulties Lucas had encountered in pre-production during that period. However, in previous times Lucas had conceived of the film as the first in a series of adventures. The second draft contained a teaser for a never-made sequel about "The Princess of Ondos", and by the time of the third draft some months later Lucas had negotiated a contract that gave him rights to make two sequels. Not long after, Lucas met with author Alan Dean Foster, and hired him to write these two sequels — as novels.[10] The intention was that if Star Wars was successful — and if Lucas felt like it — the novels could be adapted into screenplays.[11] He had also by this point developed a fairly elaborate backstory — though this was not designed or intended for filming; it was merely backstory. "The backstory wasn't meant to be a movie," Lucas has said.[12]

When Star Wars was successful, and not just successful but the biggest hit ever made at that time, Lucas decided to use the film as a springboard for an elaborate serial, although he considered walking away from the series altogether.[13] However, Lucas wanted to create an independent filmmaking center — what would become Skywalker Ranch — and saw an opportunity to use the series as a financing agent for him.[14] Alan Dean Foster had already begun writing the sequel as a novel, but Lucas decided to disregard that for filming and create more elaborate film sequels; the book was released as Splinter of the Mind's Eye the next year. At first Lucas envisioned an unlimited number of sequels, much like the James Bond series, and in an interview with Rolling Stone in August of 1977 said that he wanted his friends to take a try directing them and giving unique interpretations on the series. He also said that the backstory where Darth Vader turns to the darkside, kills Luke's father and fights Ben Kenobi on a volcano as the Republic falls would make an excellent sequel. Later that year, Lucas hired sci-fi author Leigh Brackett to write "Star Wars II" with him. They held story conferences together and in late November of 1977 Lucas had produced a handwritten treatment called "The Empire Strikes Back." The story is very similar to the final film except Darth Vader does not reveal he is Luke's father. In the first draft that Leigh Brackett would write from this, Luke's father appears as a ghost to instruct Luke.

During this period, Lucas had now had time to attach a numeric figure to the amount of sequels — he revealed to Time magazine in March 1978 that there will be twelve films altogether. This was then revealed in the official Star Wars fanclub newletter, Bantha Tracks. The figure of 12 was likely selected due to its tradition in serial episodes.

Brackett finished her first draft of Empire Strikes Back in early 1978; Lucas has said he was disappointed with it, but before he could discuss it with her she had died from cancer.[15] With no writer available, Lucas had to write his second draft himself. Here Lucas finally made use of the "Episode" listing in the film — Empire Strikes Back was Episode II.[16] As Michael Kaminski argues in The Secret History of Star Wars, the disappointment with the first draft probably made Lucas consider different directions to take the story in.[17] Here he made use of a new plot twist: Darth Vader says he is Luke's father. According to Lucas, he found this draft enjoyable to write, as opposed to the year-long struggles of the first film, and quickly wrote two more drafts in the same month[18] — April of 1978 — which both retained the new Vader-as-father plot.[19] He also took this darker ending farther by imprisoning Han Solo in carbonite and leaving him in limbo.

This new storyline where Vader was Luke's father had drastic effects on the series. Michael Kaminski argues in his book that it is unlikely that this was a plot point that had ever seriously been considered before 1978, or even thought of before then, and that the first film was clearly operating under an alternate storyline where Vader was separate from Luke's father;[20] there is not a single reference to the Vader-as-father plot point before 1978. After the second and third drafts of Empire Strikes Back where Lucas first introduced this point, he reviewed the new backstory he had now created: Annikin Skywalker is Ben Kenobi's brilliant student, has a child (Luke) but is swayed to the dark-side by the Emperor (who was now a Sith and not just a politician), battles Ben Kenobi on the site of a volcano and is wounded but resurrected as Darth Vader; meanwhile Kenobi hides Luke on Tatooine while the Republic becomes the Empire and Vader has hunted down the Jedi knights.[21] With this new backstory, Lucas decided to film this as a trilogy — moving Empire Strikes Back from Episode II to Episode V in the next draft.[22] Lawrence Kasdan, who had just completed writing Raiders of the Lost Ark, was then hired to write the next drafts, and was helped by additional input from director Irvin Kershner. Kasdan, Kershner, and producer Gary Kurtz saw the film as a more serious and adult film, which was helped by the new, darker storyline, and brought the series far away from the light adventure roots it had existed as only a year earlier.[23]

Lucas had also around this time developed a third trilogy as well, which took place twenty years after Episode VI.[24]

By the time of writing Episode VI — Revenge of the Jedi, as it was then known — in 1981, much had changed. Making Empire Strikes Back was a stressful and costly work, and Lucas' personal life was disintegrating. Burnt-out and not wanting to make any more Star Wars films, he vowed to be done with the series, as he makes explicit in a May 1983 interview with Time magazine. Lucas' 1981 rough drafts of Revenge of the Jedi had Darth Vader competing with the Emperor for possession of Luke — and in the second script, the "revised rough draft", Vader was turned into a sympathetic character. Lawrence Kasdan was hired to take over once again, and in these final drafts Vader was explicitly redeemed, and finally unmasked. This change in character would provide a springboard for the "Tragedy of Darth Vader" storyline in the prequels.

After getting a divorce in 1983 and losing much of his fortune, Lucas had no desire to return to Star Wars, and had unofficially cancelled his Sequel Trilogy by the time of Return of the Jedi.[25] However, the prequels, which were quite developed, remained fascinating to him. After Star Wars became popular once again, following in the wake of Dark Horse's comic line and Timothy Zahn's trio of novels, Lucas saw that there was still a large audience. His children had begun to grow older, and with the explosion of CG technology he was now considering returning to directing.[26] By 1993 it was announced, in Variety among other sources, that he would be making the prequels. He began outlining the story, now offering that Anakin Skywalker would be the protagonist rather than Ben Kenobi and that the series would be a tragic one examining his transformation to evil. He also began to change how the prequels would exist relative to the originals — at first they were supposed to be a "filling-in" of history, backstory, existing parallel or tangential to the originals, but now he began to see that they could form the beginning of one long story: beginning with Anakin's childhood and ending with Anakin's death. This was the final step towards turning the franchise into a "Saga".[27]

In 1994, Lucas began writing the first screenplay, titled Episode I: The Beginning. At first it was planned to write and then film all three prequels at once, but this was changed, possibly because the writing process took much longer than first thought. Although Lucas initially planned on having others write and direct, he kept writing on his own, and eventually decided to direct the film as well. In 1999, Lucas announced he would be directing the next two films as well, and began working on Episode II at that time.[28] The first draft of this was completed just weeks before principal photography, and Lucas hired Jonathan Hales, a writer from the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, to polish up his draft.[29] Unsure of a title, Lucas had jokingly called the film "Jar Jar's Big Adventure." By now the backstory had undergone large changes — Ben Kenobi had discovered Anakin as an adult in Episode I's first draft, but he was changed to be a young student, and Anakin a child, and in Episode II the Clone Wars were decided to be a personal manipulation of Palpatine's. At the time of the original trilogy, Lucas had many ideas for this war: in Empire Strikes Back it was decided that Lando was a clone and came from a planet of clones that caused a war,[30] but later a different version was decided wherein "Shocktroopers", including Boba Fett waged war against the Republic from a distant galaxy but were then repelled by the Jedi knights.[31]

Lucas began working on Episode III even before Attack of the Clones was released, offering concept artists that the film would open with a montage of seven Clone War battles.[32] As he reviewed the storyline that summer, however, he says he radically re-organized the plot.[33] Michael Kaminski, in The Secret History of Star Wars, offers evidence that issues in Anakin's fall to the darkside prompted Lucas to make massive story changes, first revising the opening sequence to have Palpatine kidnapped and Dooku killed by Anakin as a first act towards the darkside.[34] Lucas' first draft was written in 2003, and is largely similar to the film, though much simplified. After principal photography was complete in 2003, Lucas made even more massive changes in Anakin's character, re-writing his entire turn to the darkside — he would now turn out of a quest to save Padme from dying, rather than the previous version where that was one of many reasons and genuinely believed that the Jedi were evil and plotting to take over the Republic. This fundamental re-write was accomplished through editing and many new and revised scenes filmed in additional pick-ups in 2004.

George Lucas has often exaggerated the amount of material he had written for the series, most of these exaggerations stemming from the post-1978 period where the film grew into a true phenomenon. Lucasfilm often indicated that he had written twelve stories to be filmed, and Lucas was quick to tell how Star Wars was always Episode IV that was meant as a middle-chapter. Lucas also began to claim that Darth Vader's parentage of Luke and redemption was always a major part of his plan from early on, and even that this was his very first script or treatment.[35] [36] As Jonathan Rinzler and Michael Kaminski show, this is demonstrably false. Kaminski rationalises that these exaggerations are part publicity device and part security measure — with the series and story radically changing throughout the years, Lucas would emphasize that its current embodiment was the original intention; with the series previously existing as different and often contradictory forms, this makes audiences view the material only from the perspective that Lucas' wishes them to view the material, and it also may protect against outrage that such a popular storyline was being changed post-release after being cherished by so many.

Information on the screenplays comes from many sources. Most of the drafts of Star Wars were leaked to the public in 1977 and have circulated since then. 1987's Annotated Screenplays thoroughly documented the early drafts of the trilogy, and Rinzler's Making of Star Wars supplemented this info with even more detail, including drafts which had not yet been publicly leaked, as well as Lucas' personal notes. Information on the prequel scripts is comparatively more scarce, but a number of making-of books give insight into the writing process and early drafts. The prequels drafts are largely similar to the final films due to Lucas exploring ideas in the art department rather than on paper. Michael Kaminski's The Secret History of Star Wars is the most complete collection of information on all six films.

The Cast and Crew of Star Wars


Since most major motion picture companies no longer had special effects teams or they thought the American public was no longer interested in non-realistic films, George Lucas had to create one from scratch. He eventually put together a team of model makers and special effects people to create Industrial Light & Magic. The team worked in a run down part of Sana Modesta in a cramped work space which no one ever liked.

Meanwhile, George Lucas was looking for actors for Star Wars. Lucas had decided to go with a group of unknowns and went against his friend Francis Ford Coppola who had picked famous stage and screen actors for The Godfather. Hundreds of actors and actresses tried out for the three main roles, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo. Actors like Burt Reynolds and actresses like Jodie Foster tried out for the parts but Lucas eventually chose 20-year old Mark Hamill, who had only worked on television, as Luke Skywalker and Carrie Fisher, daughter of couple Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, as Princess Leia. Initially, Harrison Ford was not eligible for the role of Han Solo due to fact he had worked with Lucas on American Graffiti but eventually swayed Lucas over after helping the other actors and actresses with their lines and got the part.

After casting the initial group, Lucas had to find actors for two of the films droids, C-3PO and R2-D2. ILM had made some quaint remote controlled robots but these parts would require living actors. In came 3-foot comedian, Kenny Baker. Due to his shortness and the fact kids could not control this heavy machine, he got the part of R2. Anthony Daniels however originally did not want to do the part of C-3PO until he saw a drawing of C-3PO by McQuarrie and he instantly wanted the part and got it. Lucas eventually found Australia native Peter Mayhew who was over 7 feet tall making him the perfect size for Han Solo's furry Wookiee counterpart Chewbacca. After casting all the characters, Lucas began production on Star Wars in mid-1976.

Star Wars comes to life


The cast and crew of Star Wars began filming in Tunisia, North Africa where mid-morning temperatures reached 105 degrees. Many crew members and cast workers thought the movie was a joke and between problems on props and machinery, during filming Tunisia had their largest rainstorm in many years. Through it all Alec Guinness, the Academy Award winning actor who was cast as the wise mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, kept up a positive attitude and was inspiration for the cast. The only silver lining was that after Africa, the team would be filming at a more controlled area, Elstree Studios in London.

After finishing up filming in Africa, The entire cast and crew of Star Wars finally came together to film the action sequences on the Death Star battle station. While this was happening, problems at ILM were far worse than the filming ones. Lucas eventually had to supervise every day at ILM causing him to nearly have a heart attack. Meanwhile, Fox studios had had enough of George Lucas and his "kid's movie" and asked Alan Ladd Jr. to terminate the project. Instead, Alan told Lucas he had only a few weeks to finish filming or have his movie fail. The last few climactic scenes were finished quickly with Lucas bike-pedaling from soundstage to soundstage. Eventually, the film was finished and the process to edit and fix his film began.

Problems Star Wars faced


When Lucas saw the first cut of his film, he was horrified. To make matters worse, he had to fire his editor. Luckily, his replacements (including his then wife Marcia) greatly improved the film, but Lucas still insisted on reshooting some scenes. This, among other reasons, forced Fox to move the release date from Christmas 1976 to Summer 1977. After showing the film without its music score to some of his friends, only Steven Spielberg, who had recently become an A-list director with the release of Jaws, liked it. However, when Fox executives saw it they loved it. With his film cut and most of the sounds for the film completed (and with the help of Ben Burtt), Lucas started to think about his film's score. It was Spielberg who recommended John Williams (who had just scored Jaws). This was considered a gutsy move because thematic scores were out of style at the time, but Lucas went ahead with it.

The pre-release of Star Wars
After the score was completed, Lucas began to start marketing his picture. However, many people thought it would be a flop, so not many people went with him. One company that did however was the toy company Kenner who decided to make a few figures for the release. Eventually, Lucas's film was released on May 25, 1977. It would be a day they would never forget.

The success of Star Wars
When Star Wars opened, it initially opened at a few theaters. A month after its release Star Wars played at almost every theater in the country and hundreds world wide. People, especially children, flocked to see the adventures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia again and again and again. Lines stretched for miles. Kenner, caught up in a vortex, ran out of toys by early fall of the films release. So, the infamous "Empty Box" scheme was formed. Fox's stock rocketed up. Merchandising flew off the shelves by the thousands and Lucas became very rich. Star Wars' run eventually ended by early 1978 with over 260 million dollars making it the most successful film in history at that time. It would be re-released over the next 20 years adding 220 million to it's overall total. Currently, it is the second-highest American grossing film of all time (in inflation-adjusted dollars), second only to Gone with the Wind.

Star Wars was nominated for 10 Oscars including Best Picture and won 6 of them. But just being nominated for it showed Fox and Lucas, who knew all along, that this was not a "kids film."

The Empire Strikes Back


In 1978, with George Lucas a millionaire, he began taking his screenplays for Episodes V and VI and turning them into films. In early 1978, Lucas began working on Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Star Wars was also later retitled, Episode IV: A New Hope. However, this time Lucas left the Director's Guild and Irvin Kershner was the new director with Lucas as the producer. Filming began in mid to late 1978 with the snowy planet of Hoth scenes being filmed in Norway. However, during filming, as if a curse, Norway suffered their worst snow storm in many years. Mark Hamill, who was still recovering from his car accident injuries, filmed in a scene in the snow while the crew stayed in their hotel rooms. After the filming there concluded, the next part of the filming process turned to Elstree Studios.

Since Lucas wanted this movie to be bigger and more spectacular than Star Wars, more sets were made and new characters were introduced which included the first black Star Wars character, Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams and a 2-foot puppet named Yoda voiced by Frank Oz. It was also the first time that Han Solo and Princess Leia kissed. But the biggest surprise was Darth Vader's revelation to Luke. A few minutes before shooting that scene, Kershner told Hamill that Vader was his father. However, they did not tell David Prowse, the man in the Vader suit, so when they recorded Vader's dialogue with James Earl Jones the line was "No. I am your father" instead of "No, Obi-Wan killed your father." This line would later spark the lightsaber duel in Episode VI and all the Prequels adventures.

Many people believed that the sequel would not be as good as Star Wars but audiences didn't think so. The Empire Strikes Back took in 6.4 million dollars of the weekend of May 21, 1980. It was also considered the darkest Star Wars movie ever until Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was released. However, its gross in the U.S. ended at 290 million dollars making it the lowest grossing Star Wars movie ever.

Return of the Jedi


Before beginning the production of Episode VI, Lucas, using the profits from Star Wars and Empire, made Skywalker Ranch, a place where friends of Lucas could hang out and work on movies, mostly Star Wars related things. It would be used greater during the making of the prequel trilogy.

In early 1982, Lucas still out of the Director's chair, Richard Marquand began shooting Revenge of the Jedi. Some of the new things in the films included a Speeder Bike chase, a second Death Star and one of the most controversial groups of characters in Star Wars history, the Ewoks. Also, to keep the title of Episode VI from leaking out, the title, Blue Harvest: Horror Beyond Imagination, was the new "title" of the movie. After filming for Jedi completed, a few months before the film's release, Lucas changed the title to Return of the Jedi because revenge was not a quality of the Jedi. A similar title would be used for Episode III.

After Jedi broke single and opening day box office records on May 25, 1983, six years after the original Star Wars opening, George Lucas's wife divorced him, leaving him to raise his children. Afterwards, Lucas established several Lucasfilm companies including THX Sound and Picture, the Pixar Animation Studios (which would later be sold to Disney), and several others. In May 1987, ten years after the first movie's release, Lucas announced a second trilogy and hinted at a third. In mid-1996, with all the technology necessary, Lucas began working on the Star Wars movies the way he wanted them adding new scenes and changes along with THX Sound and excellent picture quality.

The Star Wars: Special Edition Movies


In the 1990s George Lucas realized he could change his Star Wars films and began altering them. Some new scenes included a dramatically improved Mos Eisley sequence from Episode IV among other things. New scenes in Episode V and VI were also added.

From early to mid-1997, Lucas released The Special Edition versions of Star Wars into cinemas, adding more money to their overall totals. Some changes caused uproars in the fan community (Greedo shoots Han first in Episode IV), while others caused a cheer (Improved Mos Eisley and Bespin sequences). However, this was not the last of Star Wars movie changes.

The Expanded Universe gets Expanded


Beginning with Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the Star Wars Expanded Universe was populated by a slow trickle of novels, comic strips and television specials.

Almost a decade after the release of Return of the Jedi, Star Wars merchandising sales had ground to a halt. In an effort to revitalize interest and capitalize on the success of other franchises in books, Bantam Books and Lucas Licensing planned a four year publication run that would include several Star Wars novels.

It was 1991's Heir to the Empire that sparked the success of the first run of new novels and signaled a renaissance in Star Wars publishing. Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy would become one of the most popular science fiction series to date, and introduced some of the Expanded Universe's best known characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn, Mara Jade and Gilad Pellaeon. Bantam would continue to publish dozens of books across a number of eras, leading to the use of era markers after Bantam was sold to Del Rey.

But books were just the beginning. In the same year as Zahn's success, Dark Horse Comics released Dark Empire, the first serious Star Wars graphic novel. It too would be followed by dozens of comic series.

Star Wars video and computer games also contributed to the Expanded Universe, but 1996's Shadows of the Empire multimedia campaign marked a turning point. The simultaneous release of a novel, video game, comics, soundtrack, toys and other promotional tie-ins set the standard that would later be followed for the merchandising efforts of the prequel trilogy and expanded upon for the Clone Wars.

The Prequels Begin
The Phantom Menace

In 1994, George Lucas began writing his Prequel Trilogy which was to be made in the coming years. In 1997, production for Episode I: The Phantom Menace went underway. Lucas would revist Tunisia, Africa and have more problems there as his Star Wars past came to haunt him. However, this time Lucas filmed all non-location photography in Leavesden Studios, England.

After wrapping up filming, Lucas started finishing up the special effects and other small things. This would eventually be his last film filmed on regular film. Meanwhile, while Lucas was wrapping up his film the first ever Star Wars: Celebration which celebrated the release of Episode I and would be done again for Episodes II and III.

After his film was released on May 19, 1999, Lucas soon started writing Episode II while Phantom Menace broke box-office records and grossed more than 900 million dollars worldwide, despite poor reviews and reaction to the acting and general appearance of characters, in particular the much maligned Jar Jar Binks.

Attack of the Clones

Filming for Episode II: Attack of the Clones started at Fox Studios, Sydney, Austraila with new actors like Hayden Christensen and the return of the now famous Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman along with a fully digitized Yoda.

However, when the film was released, many people criticized Lucas's many love scenes and Hayden's portrayal of a whiny Anakin. The film was grossed less than Spiderman and was the # 2 film of the year grossing only 311 million dollars and becoming the second lowest grossing Star Wars film of all time.

Revenge of the Sith

In late 2002, Lucas began writing the screenplay for his last Star Wars film Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, what would be the darkest Star Wars film. Anakin turns to the dark side, the Jedi Order is destroyed and Palpatine becomes Emperor. It would be a heart-felt moment when the last scene was finished and the cast left on their separate ways foreseeable the premiere in May 2005.

The film not only received the praise of the critics as well as fans. Revenge of the Sith broke midnight, opening, 3-day and 5-day records and becoming the fastest film to reach $100 million and $300 million. It has so far grossed $848 million and became the highest grossing film of 2005 in a year of let downs at the box office.

The future of Star Wars
While there have been rumors of a Sequel trilogy which would have been Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, Lucas has said many times he will not make one.

Meanwhile, in the works are several Lucasfilm projects, including the anticipated Star Wars live-action TV series, and an animated series titled Star Wars: The Clone Wars

In 2007, Lucas is planning to start releasing all 6 of the Star Wars films in 3-D along with a possible "Saga boxset" and a fourth celebration is planned to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Star Wars.

Of course, more EU novels are on the ways covering topics from Darth Bane to The Death Star. So as long as fans want it, Star Wars will live forever.

Internal links

 * List of changes in Star Wars re-releases - to see all the changes Lucas made to his movie.
 * Empire of Dreams - documentary on the making of The Original Trilogy.