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


Lucas began writing the screen play for "The Star Wars" in 1973. The script would go under several changes. At some points, Luke Skywalker was a 60-year old general and Han Solo had green skin and gills. Another time, the hero was called Luke Starkiller and his homeplanet's name was Utapau. Utapau would later be a planet in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Of course, the one thing that remained the same through all the different variations of the screenplay was the key villain, Darth Vader who wore a mask to help him breathe and looked like a samurai warrior. To try to get Fox to distribute the project, Lucas asked artist Ralph McQuarrie to draw some concept art pieces based on his writing. Alan Ladd Jr., after seeing the drawings, aproved Lucas a budget of just over 10 million dollars for his "Star Wars". However, Lucas had written also Episodes V and VI so he decided to keep them on the shelf until later. He also acquired all merchandising rights which would his "Empire of Dreams" grow eventually. Soon, he was ready to find a cast and crew for his movie.

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 and 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 and his friend Francis Ford Coppola were looking for actors for Star Wars. Lucas had decided to go with a group of unknowns and went against his friend 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-3P0 by McQuarrie and he instantly wanted the part and got it. Lucas eventually found Austraila native Peter Mayhew who was more than 6-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 eventually had to fire his editor. Luckily, he got two new ones which greatly improved the film but still Lucas had to re-shoot some scenes forcing Fox to move Star Wars release date from Christmas 1976 to Summer 1977. After showing the film to some of his friends still without a music score, 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 now his film cut and most of the sounds for the film completed, with the help of Ben Burtt, Lucas started to think about his film's score. With the help of Speilberg who had worked with John Williams on Jaws, Lucas asked him to compose the score for his film. This was considered a gutsy move because thematic scores were out of style at the time, but Lucas went ahead with it anyways.

The pre-release of Star Wars
After the score was completed, Lucas began to start marketing his picture but 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 got very rich. Star Wars' run eventually ended by early 1978 with over 260 million dollars making 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.

Star Wars was nominated for 7 Oscars including Best Picture but won 6 of them. But just being nominated for it showed Fox and Lucas, who knew all along, this was no longer 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 1979, 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 annouced 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 1990's George Lucas realised 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 portrayl 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 Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, Lucas 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 Unnamed Star Wars animated series.

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 maybe even a fourth celebration to coincide with the 30th anniversery 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.