StarWars

A prequel trilogy was released between 1999 and 2005 and received a mixed reaction from critics and fans. All six films were nominated for or won Academy Awards, and were commercial successes, with a combined box office revenue of $4.38 billion, making Star Wars the fifth-highest-grossing film series. The series has spawned an extensive media franchiseNthe Expanded UniverseNincluding books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books, resulting in significant development of the series’s fictional universe.

Star Wars also holds a Guinness World Records title for the “Most successful film merchandising franchise.” In 2012, the total value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at USD $30.7 billion, including box-office receipts as well as profits from their video games and DVD sales.In 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion and announced three new Star Wars films, with the first film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, planned for release on December 18, 2015. 20th Century Fox retains the physical distribution rights to the first two Star Wars trilogies, owning permanent rights for the original 1977 film and holding the rights to Episodes IDIII, V and VI until May 2020. The Walt Disney Studios owns digital distribution rights to all the Star Wars films, excluding A New Hope.Setting The events depicted in Star Wars media take place in a fictional galaxy.

Many species of alien creatures are depicted. Robotic droids are also commonplace and are generally built to serve their owners. Space travel is common, and many planets in the galaxy are members of a Galactic Republic, later reorganized as the Galactic Empire.One of the prominent elements of Star Wars is the “Force”, an omnipresent energy that can be harnessed by those with that ability, known as Force-sensitives. It is described in the first produced film as “an energy field created by all living things surrounds us, penetrates us, binds the galaxy together.”

The Force allows users to perform various supernatural feats and can amplify certain physical traits, such as speed and ressexes; these abilities vary between characters and can be improved through training. While the Force can be used for good, it has a dark side that, when pursued, imbues users with hatred, aggression, and malevolence.The six films feature the Jedi, who use the Force for good, and the Sith, who use the dark side for evil in an attempt to take over the galaxy. In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, many dark side users are Dark Jedi rather than Sith, mainly because of the “Rule of Two” .Theatrical films The film series began with Star Wars, released on May 25, 1977.

This was followed by two sequels: The Empire Strikes Back, released on May 21, 1980, and Return of the Jedi, released on May 25, 1983. The opening crawl of the sequels disclosed that they were numbered as “Episode V” and “Episode VI” respectively, though the films were generally advertised solely under their subtitles. Though the first film in the series was simply titled Star Wars, with its 1981 re-release it had the subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope added to remain consistent with its sequel, and to establish it as the middle chapter of a continuing saga.In 1997, to correspond with the 20th anniversary of the original film, Lucas released a “Special Edition” of the Star Wars trilogy to theaters. The re-release featured alterations to the three films, primarily motivated by the improvement of CGI and other special effects technologies, which allowed visuals that were not possible to achieve at the time of the original filmmaking. Lucas continued to make changes to the films for subsequent releases, such as the first ever DVD release of the original trilogy on September 21, 2004, and the first ever Blu-ray release of all six films on September 16, 2011.

Reception of the Special Edition was mixed, prompting petitions and fan edits to produce restored copies of the original trilogy. More than two decades after the release of the original film, the series continued with a prequel trilogy; consisting of Episode I: The Phantom Menace, released on May 19, 1999; Episode II: Attack of the Clones, released on May 16, 2002; and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, released on May 19, 2005. On August 15, 2008, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released theatrically as a lead-in to the animated TV series of the same name. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is scheduled for release on December 18, 2015.Plot overview The original trilogy begins with the Galactic Empire nearing completion of the Death Star space station, which will allow the Empire to crush the Rebel Alliance, an organized resistance formed to combat Emperor Palpatine’s tyranny. Palpatine’s Sith apprentice Darth Vader captures Princess Leia, a member of the rebellion who has stolen the plans to the Death Star and hidden them in the astromech droid R2-D2. R2, along with his protocol droid counterpart C-3PO, escapes to the desert planet Tatooine.

There, the droids are purchased by farm boy Luke Skywalker and his step-uncle and aunt. While Luke is cleaning R2, he accidentally triggers a message put into the droid by Leia, who asks for assistance from the legendary Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke later assists the droids in finding the exiled Jedi, who is now passing as an old hermit under the alias Ben Kenobi. When Luke asks about his father, whom he has never met, Obi-Wan tells him that Anakin Skywalker was a great Jedi who was betrayed and murdered by Vader. Obi-Wan and Luke hire the smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot Chewbacca to take them to Alderaan, Leia’s home world, which they eventually find has been destroyed by the Death Star.

Once on board the space station, Luke and Han rescue Leia while Obi-Wan allows himself to be killed during a lightsaber duel with Vader; his sacrifice allows the group to escape with the plans that help the Rebels destroy the Death Star. Luke himself fires the shot that destroys the deadly space station during the Battle of Yavin. The Star Wars world, unlike fantasy and science-fiction films that featured sleek and futuristic settings, was portrayed as dirty and grimy. Lucas’ vision of a “used future” was further popularized in the science fiction-horror films Alien, which was set on a dirty space freighter; Mad Max 2, which is set in a post-apocalyptic desert; and Blade Runner, which is set in a crumbling, dirty city of the future. Lucas made a conscious effort to parallel scenes and dialogue between films, and especially to parallel the journeys of Luke Skywalker with that of his father Anakin when making the prequels.

Star Wars also ressects on the events in America following the September 11 attacks. Some have drawn similarities between the rise in authoritarianism from around the beginning of Clone Wars until the end of the Old Republic and the United States government’s actions after 9/11, specifically passage of the Patriot Act in 2001.Technical information All six films of the Star Wars series were shot in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1. The original trilogy was shot with anamorphic lenses. Episodes IV and V were shot in Panavision, while Episode VI was shot in Joe Dunton Camera scope. Episode I was shot with Hawk anamorphic lenses on Arrissex cameras, and Episodes II and III were shot with Sony’s CineAlta high-definition digital cameras.Lucas hired Ben Burtt to oversee the sound effects on the original 1977 film. Burtt’s accomplishment was such that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented him with a Special Achievement Award because it had no award at the time for the work he had done. Lucasfilm developed the THX sound reproduction standard for Return of the Jedi. John Williams composed the scores for all six films.

Lucas’ design for Star Wars involved a grand musical sound, with leitmotifs for different characters and important concepts. Williams’ Star Wars title theme has become one of the most famous and well-known musical compositions in modern music history.Lucas hired ‘the Dean of Special Effects’ John Stears, who created R2-D2, Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder, the Jedi Knights’ lightsabers, and the Death Star. The technical lightsaber choreography for the original trilogy was developed by leading filmmaking sword-master Bob Anderson. Anderson trained actor Mark Hamill and performed all the sword stunts as Darth Vader during the lightsaber duels in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, wearing Vader’s costume. Anderson’s role in the original Star Wars trilogy was highlighted in the film Reclaiming the Blade, where he shares his experiences as the fight choreographer developing the lightsaber techniques for the movies.Production history Original trilogy In 1971, Universal Studios agreed to make American Graffiti and Star Wars in a two-picture contract, although Star Wars was later rejected in its early concept stages.

American Graffiti was completed in 1973 and, a few months later, Lucas wrote a short summary called “The Journal of the Whills”, which told the tale of the training of apprentice CJ Thorpe as a “Jedi-Bendu” space commando by the legendary Mace Windy. Frustrated that his story was too difficult to understand, Lucas then began writing a 13-page treatment called The Star Wars on April 17, 1973, which had thematic parallels with Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. By 1974, he had expanded the treatment into a rough draft screenplay, adding elements such as the Sith, the Death Star, and a protagonist named Annikin Starkiller.For the second draft, Lucas made heavy simplifications, and introduced the young hero on a farm as Luke Starkiller.

Annikin became Luke’s father, a wise Jedi knight. “The Force” was also introduced as a mystical energy field. 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 simply The Star Wars and finally Star Wars.At that point, Lucas was not expecting the film to become part of a series. The fourth draft of the script underwent subtle changes that made it more satisfying as a self-contained film, ending with the destruction of the Empire itself by way of destroying the Death Star. However, Lucas had previously conceived of the film as the first in a series of adventures. Later, he realized the film would not in fact be the first in the sequence, but a film in the second trilogy in the saga. This is stated explicitly in George Lucas’ preface to the 1994 reissue of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye: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.

The intention was that if Star Wars were successful, Lucas could adapt the novels into screenplays. He had also by that point developed an elaborate backstory to aid his writing process.When Star Wars proved successful, Lucas decided to use the film as the basis for an elaborate serial, although at one point he considered walking away from the series altogether. However, Lucas wanted to create an independent filmmaking centerNwhat would become Skywalker RanchNand saw an opportunity to use the series as a financing agent. Alan Dean Foster had already begun writing the first sequel novel, but Lucas decided to abandon his plan to adapt Foster’s work; the book was released as Splinter of the Mind’s Eye the following year. At first Lucas envisioned a series of films with no set number of entries, like the James Bond series.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in August 1977, he said that he wanted his friends to each take a turn at directing the films and giving unique interpretations on the series. He also said that the backstory in which Darth Vader turns to the dark side, kills Luke’s father and fights Ben Kenobi on a volcano as the Galactic Republic falls would make an excellent sequel.Later that year, Lucas hired science fiction author Leigh Brackett to write Star Wars II with him. They held story conferences and, by late November 1977, Lucas had produced a handwritten treatment called The Empire Strikes Back. The treatment is similar to the final film, except that Darth Vader does not reveal he is Luke’s father. In the first draft that Brackett would write from this, Luke’s father appears as a ghost to instruct Luke.Brackett finished her first draft in early 1978; Lucas has said he was disappointed with it, but before he could discuss it with her, she died of cancer. With no writer available, Lucas had to write his next draft himself.

It was this draft in which Lucas first made use of the “Episode” numbering for the films; Empire Strikes Back was listed as Episode II. As Michael Kaminski argues in The Secret History of Star Wars, the disappointment with the first draft probably made Lucas consider different directions in which to take the story. He made use of a new plot twist: Darth Vader claims to be Luke’s father. According to Lucas, he found this draft enjoyable to write, as opposed to the yearlong struggles writing the first film, and quickly wrote two more drafts, both in April 1978. He also took the script to a darker extreme by having Han Solo imprisoned in carbonite and left in limbo.

enerally built to serve theirowners. Space travel is common, and many planets in the galaxy are members of a GalacticRepublic, later reorganized as the Galactic Empire.One of the prominent elements of Star Wars is the “Force”, an omnipresent energy that can beharnessed by those with that ability, known as Force-sensitives. It is described in the first producedfilm as “an energy field created by all living things surrounds us, penetrates us, binds the galaxytogether.” The Force allows users to perform various supernatural feats and can amplify certainphysical traits, such as speed and reßexes; these abilities vary between characters and can beimproved through training. While the Force can be used for good, it has a dark side that, whenpursued, imbues users with hatred, aggression, and malevolence.The six films feature the Jedi, who use the Force for good, and the S

Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise centered on a film series created by George Lucas. It depicts the adventures of various characters “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”, following the main story of Anakin Skywalker and his son Luke.The first film in the series, Star Wars, was released on May 25, 1977 by 20th Century Fox and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. It was followed by two sequels, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi ; these three films constitute the Star Wars original trilogy, and received positive reviews.
A prequel trilogy was released between 1999 and 2005 and received a mixed reaction from critics and fans. All six films were nominated for or won Academy Awards, and were commercial successes, with a combined box office revenue of $4.38 billion, making Star Wars the fifth-highest-grossing film series. The series has spawned an extensive media franchiseNthe Expanded UniverseNincluding books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books, resulting in significant development of the series’s fictional universe.
Star Wars also holds a Guinness World Records title for the “Most successful film merchandising franchise.” In 2012, the total value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at USD $30.7 billion, including box-office receipts as well as profits from their video games and DVD sales.In 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion and announced three new Star Wars films, with the first film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, planned for release on December 18, 2015. 20th Century Fox retains the physical distribution rights to the first two Star Wars trilogies, owning permanent rights for the original 1977 film and holding the rights to Episodes IDIII, V and VI until May 2020. The Walt Disney Studios owns digital distribution rights to all the Star Wars films, excluding A New Hope.Setting The events depicted in Star Wars media take place in a fictional galaxy.
Many species of alien creatures are depicted. Robotic droids are also commonplace and are generally built to serve their owners. Space travel is common, and many planets in the galaxy are members of a Galactic Republic, later reorganized as the Galactic Empire.One of the prominent elements of Star Wars is the “Force”, an omnipresent energy that can be harnessed by those with that ability, known as Force-sensitives. It is described in the first produced film as “an energy field created by all living things surrounds us, penetrates us, binds the galaxy together.”
The Force allows users to perform various supernatural feats and can amplify certain physical traits, such as speed and ressexes; these abilities vary between characters and can be improved through training. While the Force can be used for good, it has a dark side that, when pursued, imbues users with hatred, aggression, and malevolence.The six films feature the Jedi, who use the Force for good, and the Sith, who use the dark side for evil in an attempt to take over the galaxy. In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, many dark side users are Dark Jedi rather than Sith, mainly because of the “Rule of Two” .Theatrical films The film series began with Star Wars, released on May 25, 1977.
This was followed by two sequels: The Empire Strikes Back, released on May 21, 1980, and Return of the Jedi, released on May 25, 1983. The opening crawl of the sequels disclosed that they were numbered as “Episode V” and “Episode VI” respectively, though the films were generally advertised solely under their subtitles. Though the first film in the series was simply titled Star Wars, with its 1981 re-release it had the subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope added to remain consistent with its sequel, and to establish it as the middle chapter of a continuing saga.In 1997, to correspond with the 20th anniversary of the original film, Lucas released a “Special Edition” of the Star Wars trilogy to theaters. The re-release featured alterations to the three films, primarily motivated by the improvement of CGI and other special effects technologies, which allowed visuals that were not possible to achieve at the time of the original filmmaking. Lucas continued to make changes to the films for subsequent releases, such as the first ever DVD release of the original trilogy on September 21, 2004, and the first ever Blu-ray release of all six films on September 16, 2011.
Reception of the Special Edition was mixed, prompting petitions and fan edits to produce restored copies of the original trilogy. More than two decades after the release of the original film, the series continued with a prequel trilogy; consisting of Episode I: The Phantom Menace, released on May 19, 1999; Episode II: Attack of the Clones, released on May 16, 2002; and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, released on May 19, 2005. On August 15, 2008, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released theatrically as a lead-in to the animated TV series of the same name. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is scheduled for release on December 18, 2015.Plot overview The original trilogy begins with the Galactic Empire nearing completion of the Death Star space station, which will allow the Empire to crush the Rebel Alliance, an organized resistance formed to combat Emperor Palpatine’s tyranny. Palpatine’s Sith apprentice Darth Vader captures Princess Leia, a member of the rebellion who has stolen the plans to the Death Star and hidden them in the astromech droid R2-D2. R2, along with his protocol droid counterpart C-3PO, escapes to the desert planet Tatooine.
There, the droids are purchased by farm boy Luke Skywalker and his step-uncle and aunt. While Luke is cleaning R2, he accidentally triggers a message put into the droid by Leia, who asks for assistance from the legendary Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke later assists the droids in finding the exiled Jedi, who is now passing as an old hermit under the alias Ben Kenobi. When Luke asks about his father, whom he has never met, Obi-Wan tells him that Anakin Skywalker was a great Jedi who was betrayed and murdered by Vader. Obi-Wan and Luke hire the smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot Chewbacca to take them to Alderaan, Leia’s home world, which they eventually find has been destroyed by the Death Star.
Once on board the space station, Luke and Han rescue Leia while Obi-Wan allows himself to be killed during a lightsaber duel with Vader; his sacrifice allows the group to escape with the plans that help the Rebels destroy the Death Star. Luke himself fires the shot that destroys the deadly space station during the Battle of Yavin. The Star Wars world, unlike fantasy and science-fiction films that featured sleek and futuristic settings, was portrayed as dirty and grimy. Lucas’ vision of a “used future” was further popularized in the science fiction-horror films Alien, which was set on a dirty space freighter; Mad Max 2, which is set in a post-apocalyptic desert; and Blade Runner, which is set in a crumbling, dirty city of the future. Lucas made a conscious effort to parallel scenes and dialogue between films, and especially to parallel the journeys of Luke Skywalker with that of his father Anakin when making the prequels.
Star Wars also ressects on the events in America following the September 11 attacks. Some have drawn similarities between the rise in authoritarianism from around the beginning of Clone Wars until the end of the Old Republic and the United States government’s actions after 9/11, specifically passage of the Patriot Act in 2001.Technical information All six films of the Star Wars series were shot in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1. The original trilogy was shot with anamorphic lenses. Episodes IV and V were shot in Panavision, while Episode VI was shot in Joe Dunton Camera scope. Episode I was shot with Hawk anamorphic lenses on Arrissex cameras, and Episodes II and III were shot with Sony’s CineAlta high-definition digital cameras.Lucas hired Ben Burtt to oversee the sound effects on the original 1977 film. Burtt’s accomplishment was such that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented him with a Special Achievement Award because it had no award at the time for the work he had done. Lucasfilm developed the THX sound reproduction standard for Return of the Jedi. John Williams composed the scores for all six films.
Lucas’ design for Star Wars involved a grand musical sound, with leitmotifs for different characters and important concepts. Williams’ Star Wars title theme has become one of the most famous and well-known musical compositions in modern music history.Lucas hired ‘the Dean of Special Effects’ John Stears, who created R2-D2, Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder, the Jedi Knights’ lightsabers, and the Death Star. The technical lightsaber choreography for the original trilogy was developed by leading filmmaking sword-master Bob Anderson. Anderson trained actor Mark Hamill and performed all the sword stunts as Darth Vader during the lightsaber duels in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, wearing Vader’s costume. Anderson’s role in the original Star Wars trilogy was highlighted in the film Reclaiming the Blade, where he shares his experiences as the fight choreographer developing the lightsaber techniques for the movies.Production history Original trilogy In 1971, Universal Studios agreed to make American Graffiti and Star Wars in a two-picture contract, although Star Wars was later rejected in its early concept stages.
American Graffiti was completed in 1973 and, a few months later, Lucas wrote a short summary called “The Journal of the Whills”, which told the tale of the training of apprentice CJ Thorpe as a “Jedi-Bendu” space commando by the legendary Mace Windy. Frustrated that his story was too difficult to understand, Lucas then began writing a 13-page treatment called The Star Wars on April 17, 1973, which had thematic parallels with Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. By 1974, he had expanded the treatment into a rough draft screenplay, adding elements such as the Sith, the Death Star, and a protagonist named Annikin Starkiller.For the second draft, Lucas made heavy simplifications, and introduced the young hero on a farm as Luke Starkiller.
Annikin became Luke’s father, a wise Jedi knight. “The Force” was also introduced as a mystical energy field. 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 simply The Star Wars and finally Star Wars.At that point, Lucas was not expecting the film to become part of a series. The fourth draft of the script underwent subtle changes that made it more satisfying as a self-contained film, ending with the destruction of the Empire itself by way of destroying the Death Star. However, Lucas had previously conceived of the film as the first in a series of adventures. Later, he realized the film would not in fact be the first in the sequence, but a film in the second trilogy in the saga. This is stated explicitly in George Lucas’ preface to the 1994 reissue of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye: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.
The intention was that if Star Wars were successful, Lucas could adapt the novels into screenplays. He had also by that point developed an elaborate backstory to aid his writing process.When Star Wars proved successful, Lucas decided to use the film as the basis for an elaborate serial, although at one point he considered walking away from the series altogether. However, Lucas wanted to create an independent filmmaking centerNwhat would become Skywalker RanchNand saw an opportunity to use the series as a financing agent. Alan Dean Foster had already begun writing the first sequel novel, but Lucas decided to abandon his plan to adapt Foster’s work; the book was released as Splinter of the Mind’s Eye the following year. At first Lucas envisioned a series of films with no set number of entries, like the James Bond series.
In an interview with Rolling Stone in August 1977, he said that he wanted his friends to each take a turn at directing the films and giving unique interpretations on the series. He also said that the backstory in which Darth Vader turns to the dark side, kills Luke’s father and fights Ben Kenobi on a volcano as the Galactic Republic falls would make an excellent sequel.Later that year, Lucas hired science fiction author Leigh Brackett to write Star Wars II with him. They held story conferences and, by late November 1977, Lucas had produced a handwritten treatment called The Empire Strikes Back. The treatment is similar to the final film, except that Darth Vader does not reveal he is Luke’s father. In the first draft that Brackett would write from this, Luke’s father appears as a ghost to instruct Luke.Brackett finished her first draft in early 1978; Lucas has said he was disappointed with it, but before he could discuss it with her, she died of cancer. With no writer available, Lucas had to write his next draft himself.
It was this draft in which Lucas first made use of the “Episode” numbering for the films; Empire Strikes Back was listed as Episode II. As Michael Kaminski argues in The Secret History of Star Wars, the disappointment with the first draft probably made Lucas consider different directions in which to take the story. He made use of a new plot twist: Darth Vader claims to be Luke’s father. According to Lucas, he found this draft enjoyable to write, as opposed to the yearlong struggles writing the first film, and quickly wrote two more drafts, both in April 1978. He also took the script to a darker extreme by having Han Solo imprisoned in carbonite and left in limbo.

ith, who use the dark side forevil in an attempt to take over the galaxy. In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, many dark sideusers are Dark Jedi rather than Sith, mainly because of the “Rule of Two” .Theatrical filmsThe film series began with Star Wars, released on May 25, 1977. This was followed by twosequels: The Empire Strikes Back, released on May 21, 1980, and Return of the Jedi, released onMay 25, 1983. The opening crawl of the sequels disclosed that they were numbered as “EpisodeV” and “Episode VI” respectively, though the films were generally advertised solely under theirsubtitles. Though the first film in the series was simply titled Star Wars, with its 1981 re-release ithad the subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope added to remain consistent with its sequel, and toestablish it as the middle chapter of a continuing saga.In 1997, to correspond with the 20th anniversary of the original film, Lucas released a “SpecialEdition” of the Star Wars trilogy to theaters. The re-release featured alterations to the three films,primarily motivated by the improvement of CGI and other special effects technologies, whichallowed visuals that were not possible to achieve at the time of the original filmmaking. Lucascontinued to make changes to the films for subsequent releases, such as the first ever DVDrelease of the original trilogy on September 21, 2004, and the first ever Blu-ray release of all sixfilms on September 16, 2011. Reception of the Special Edition was mixed, prompting petitions andfan edits to produce restored copies of the original trilogy.

More than two decades after the release of the original film, the series continued with a prequeltrilogy; consisting of Episode I: The Phantom Menace, released on May 19, 1999; Episode II:Attack of the Clones, released on May 16, 2002; and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, released onMay 19, 2005. On August 15, 2008, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released theatrically as alead-in to the animated TV series of the same name. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is scheduledfor release on December 18, 2015.Plot overviewThe original trilogy begins with the Galactic Empire nearing completion of the Death Star spacestation, which will allow the Empire to crush the Rebel Alliance, an organized resistance formed tocombat Emperor Palpatine’s tyranny. Palpatine’s Sith apprentice Darth Vader captures PrincessLeia, a member of the rebellion who has stolen the plans to the Death Star and hidden them in theastromech droid R2-D2. R2, along with his protocol droid counterpart C-3PO, escapes to thedesert planet Tatooine. There, the droids are purchased by farm boy Luke Skywalker and his step-uncle and aunt. While Luke is cleaning R2, he accidentally triggers a message put into the droid byLeia, who asks for assistance from the legendary Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke later assiststhe droids in finding the exiled Jedi, who is now passing as an old hermit under the alias BenKenobi. When Luke asks about his father, whom he has never met, Obi-Wan tells him that AnakinSkywalker was a great Jedi who was betrayed and murdered by Vader. Obi-Wan and Luke hire thesmuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot Chewbacca to take them to Alderaan, Leia’s homeworld, which they eventually find has been destroyed by the Death Star. Once on board the spacestation, Luke and Han rescue Leia while Obi-Wan allows himself to be killed during a lightsaberduel with Vader; his sacrifice allows the group to escape with the plans that help the Rebelsdestroy the Death Star. Luke himself fires the shot that destroys the deadly space station duringthe Battle of Yavin. The Star Wars world, unlike fantasy and science-fiction films that featured sleekand futuristic settings, was portrayed as dirty and grimy. Lucas’ vision of a “used future” was furtherpopularized in the science fiction-horror films Alien, which was set on a dirty space freighter; MadMax 2, which is set in a post-apocalyptic desert; and Blade Runner, which is set in a crumbling,dirty city of the future. Lucas made a conscious effort to parallel scenes and dialogue betweenfilms, and especially to parallel the journeys of Luke Skywalker with that of his father Anakin whenmaking the prequels. Star Wars also reßects on the events in America following the September 11attacks. Some have drawn similarities between the rise in authoritarianism from around thebeginning of Clone Wars until the end of the Old Republic and the United States government’sactions after 9/11, specifically passage of the Patriot Act in 2001.Technical informationAll six films of the Star Wars series were shot in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1. The original trilogy wasshot with anamorphic lenses. Episodes IV and V were shot in Panavision, while Episode VI wasshot in Joe Dunton Camera scope. Episode I was shot with Hawk anamorphic lenses on Arrißexcameras, and Episodes II and III were shot with Sony’s CineAlta high-definition digital cameras.Lucas hired Ben Burtt to oversee the sound effects on the original 1977 film. Burtt’saccomplishment was such that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented himwith a Special Achievement Award because it had no award at the time for the work he had done.Lucasfilm developed the THX sound reproduction standard for Return of the Jedi. John Williamscomposed the scores for all six films. Lucas’ design for Star Wars involved a grand musical sound,with leitmotifs for different characters and important concepts. Williams’ Star Wars title theme hasbecome one of the most famous and well-known musical compositions in modern music history.Lucas hired ‘the Dean of Special Effects’ John Stears, who created R2-D2, Luke Skywalker’sLandspeeder, the Jedi Knights’ lightsabers, and the Death Star. The technical lightsaberchoreography for the original trilogy was developed by leading filmmaking sword-master BobAnderson. Anderson trained actor Mark Hamill and performed all the sword stunts as Darth Vaderduring the lightsaber duels in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, wearing Vader’scostume. Anderson’s role in the original Star Wars trilogy was highlighted in the film Reclaiming theBlade, where he shares his experiences as the fight choreographer developing the lightsabertechniques for the movies.Production historyOriginal trilogy

In 1971, Universal Studios agreed to make American Graffiti and Star Wars in a two-picturecontract, although Star Wars was later rejected in its early concept stages. American Graffiti wascompleted in 1973 and, a few months later, Lucas wrote a short summary called “The Journal ofthe Whills”, which told the tale of the training of apprentice CJ Thorpe as a “Jedi-Bendu” spacecommando by the legendary Mace Windy. Frustrated that his story was too difficult to understand,Lucas then began writing a 13-page treatment called The Star Wars on April 17, 1973, which hadthematic parallels with Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. By 1974, he had expanded thetreatment into a rough draft screenplay, adding elements such as the Sith, the Death Star, and aprotagonist named Annikin Starkiller.For the second draft, Lucas made heavy simplifications, and introduced the young hero on a farmas Luke Starkiller. Annikin became Luke’s father, a wise Jedi knight. “The Force” was alsointroduced as a mystical energy field. The next draft removed the father character and replacedhim with a substitute named Ben Kenobi, and in 1976 a fourth draft had been prepared for principalphotography. The film was titled Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of theWhills, Saga I: The Star Wars. During production, Lucas changed Luke’s name to Skywalker andaltered the title to simply The Star Wars and finally Star Wars.At that point, Lucas was not expecting the film to become part of a series. The fourth draft of thescript underwent subtle changes that made it more satisfying as a self-contained film, ending withthe destruction of the Empire itself by way of destroying the Death Star. However, Lucas hadpreviously conceived of the film as the first in a series of adventures. Later, he realized the filmwould not in fact be the first in the sequence, but a film in the second trilogy in the saga. This isstated explicitly in George Lucas’ preface to the 1994 reissue of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye:The second draft contained a teaser for a never-made sequel about “The Princess of Ondos,” andby the time of the third draft some months later Lucas had negotiated a contract that gave himrights to make two sequels. Not long after, Lucas met with author Alan Dean Foster, and hired himto write these two sequels as novels. The intention was that if Star Wars were successful, Lucascould adapt the novels into screenplays. He had also by that point developed an elaboratebackstory to aid his writing process.When Star Wars proved successful, Lucas decided to use the film as the basis for an elaborateserial, although at one point he considered walking away from the series altogether. However,Lucas wanted to create an independent filmmaking centerÑwhat would become Skywalker RanchÑand saw an opportunity to use the series as a financing agent. Alan Dean Foster had alreadybegun writing the first sequel novel, but Lucas decided to abandon his plan to adapt Foster’s work;the book was released as Splinter of the Mind’s Eye the following year. At first Lucas envisioned aseries of films with no set number of entries, like the James Bond series. In an interview withRolling Stone in August 1977, he said that he wanted his friends to each take a turn at directing thefilms and giving unique interpretations on the series. He also said that the backstory in which DarthVader turns to the dark side, kills Luke’s father and fights Ben Kenobi on a volcano as the GalacticRepublic falls would make an excellent sequel.Later that year, Lucas hired science fiction author Leigh Brackett to write Star Wars II with him.They held story conferences and, by late November 1977, Lucas had produced a handwrittentreatment called The Empire Strikes Back. The treatment is similar to the final film, except thatDarth Vader does not reveal he is Luke’s father. In the first draft that Brackett would write from this,Luke’s father appears as a ghost to instruct Luke.Brackett finished her first draft in early 1978; Lucas has said he was disappointed with it, but beforehe could discuss it with her, she died of cancer. With no writer available, Lucas had to write hisnext draft himself. It was this draft in which Lucas first made use of the “Episode” numbering for thefilms; Empire Strikes Back was listed as Episode II. As Michael Kaminski argues in The SecretHistory of Star Wars, the disappointment with the first draft probably made Lucas consider differentdirections in which to take the story. He made use of a new plot twist: Darth Vader claims to beLuke’s father. According to Lucas, he found this draft enjoyable to write, as opposed to theyearlong struggles writing the first film, and quickly wrote two more drafts, both in April 1978. Healso took the script to a darker extreme by having Han Solo imprisoned in carbonite and left inlimbo.Prequel trilogy

rld Records title for the “Most successful film merchandising franchise.” In2012, the total value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at USD $30.7 billion, including box-office receipts as well as profits from their video games and DVD sales.In 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion and announced three newStar Wars films, with the first film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, planned for release onDecember 18, 2015. 20th Century Fox retains the physical distribution rights to the first two StarWars trilogies, owning permanent rights for the original 1977 film and holding the rights toEpisodes IÐIII, V and VI until May 2020. The Walt Disney Studios owns digital distribution rights toall the Star Wars films, excluding A New Hope.SettingThe events depicted in Star Wars media take place in a fictional galaxy. Many species of aliencreatures are depicted. Robotic droids are also commonplace and are g

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