and changed the title first to The Star Wars, and then, finally, to Star Wars.

Casting

Lucas had a preference for casting unknown or relatively unknown actors, which led him to select Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher for leading roles. while Fisher was cast as Princess Leia over Karen Allen, Amy Irving, Terri Nunn, Cindy Williams, and Linda Purl. Jodie Foster was offered the role, but turned it down because she was under contract with Disney. Koo Stark was also considered for Leia, but was instead cast as Luke's friend Camie Marstrap, a character that was eventually cut from the film.

Lucas initially resisted casting Harrison Ford as Han Solo, since Ford had previously worked with Lucas on American Graffiti, and was therefore not unknown. Instead, Lucas asked Ford to assist with auditions by reading lines with other actors. He was eventually won over by Ford, and cast him as Han over many other actors who auditioned, including James Caan, Chevy Chase, Robert De Niro, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Englund, Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Jack Nicholson, Nick Nolte, Burt Reynolds, Kurt Russell, Sylvester Stallone, John Travolta, Glynn Turman, Christopher Walken, and Perry King, who later played Han in the radio series. Al Pacino turned down the part because he did not understand the script.

Lucas believed that he needed an established star to play Obi-Wan Kenobi. He considered Peter Cushing for the role, but decided the actor's lean features would be better employed as the villainous Tarkin. Kurtz felt a strong character actor was required to convey the "stability and gravitas" of Obi-Wan. Guinness was surprised by the offer and disliked the script's "ropey" dialogue, but took the role as he "had to go on turning the page". On top of his salary, he received 2.25% of the film's backend grosses, which made him wealthy later in life.

Anthony Daniels sought the role of C-3PO after he saw Ralph McQuarrie's concept painting of the character and was struck by the vulnerability in the droid's face. R2-D2's beeps and squeaks were made by the film's sound designer, Ben Burtt, by imitating baby noises, recording his voice over an intercom, and finally mixing the sounds together using a synthesizer. Mayhew initially auditioned for Vader, but David Prowse was cast instead. When Lucas and Kurtz saw Mayhew's stature, they quickly cast him as Chewbacca. Mayhew modeled his performance on the mannerisms of animals he observed in public zoos.

Prowse was originally offered the role of Chewbacca, but turned it down, as he wanted to play the villain. Prowse portrayed Vader physically, but Lucas felt his West Country English accent was inappropriate for the character, and selected James Earl Jones for Vader's voice. Jones was uncredited as Vader in Star Wars films until 1983, although he was credited in the 1978 television special, Star Wars Holiday Special.

Design

During pre-production, Lucas recruited several conceptual designers: Colin Cantwell, who visualized the initial spacecraft models; Alex Tavoularis, who created storyboard sketches from early scripts; and Ralph McQuarrie, who created conceptual images of characters, costumes, props, and scenery. McQuarrie's paintings helped studio executives visualize the film, which positively influenced their decision to fund the project. His artwork also set the visual tone for Star Wars and the rest of the original trilogy.

Lucas wanted to create props and sets that had never before been used in science-fiction films. He hired as production designers John Barry and Roger Christian, who were then working on the film Lucky Lady (1975). Christian remembers that Lucas did not want anything in Star Wars to stand out, and wanted everything to look "real and used." In this "used future" aesthetic, all devices, ships, and buildings related to Tatooine and the rebels look aged and dirty, and the rebel ships look cobbled together in contrast to the Empire's sleeker designs. Lucas believed this aesthetic would lend credibility to the film's fictional places, and Christian was enthusiastic about this approach.

Barry and Christian started working with Lucas before Star Wars was funded by Fox. For several months, in a studio in Kensal Rise, England, they planned the creation of props and sets with very little money. According to Christian, the Millennium Falcon set was the most difficult to build. He wanted the interior of the ship to look like a submarine, and used inexpensive airplane scrap metal to achieve the desired effect. Set construction later moved to Elstree Studios, where Barry created thirty sets. All nine sound stages at Elstree were needed to house the planets, starships, caves, control rooms, cantinas, and Death Star corridors. The rebel hangar was so massive it had to be built at nearby Shepperton Studios, which contained Europe's largest sound stage at the time.

Filming

In 1975, Lucas founded the visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) after discovering that Fox's visual effects department had been shut down. ILM began its work on Star Wars in a warehouse in Van Nuys, California. Most of the visual effects used pioneering digital motion control photography developed by John Dykstra and his team, which created the illusion of size by employing small models and slowly moving cameras. The technology is now known as the Dykstraflex system.

Visually, Lucas wanted Star Wars to have the "ethereal quality" of a fairy tale, but also "an alien look." He hoped to achieve "the seeming contradiction of [the] strange graphics of fantasy combined with the feel of a documentary." His first choice for cinematographer was Geoffrey Unsworth, who had worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Unsworth initially accepted the job, but eventually withdrew to work on the Vincente Minnelli-directed A Matter of Time (1976).

thumb|Hotel Sidi Driss, the underground building used as Luke's Tatooine home

Originally, Lucas envisioned Tatooine as a jungle planet, and Kurtz traveled to the Philippines to scout locations. However, the thought of spending months filming in the jungle made Lucas uncomfortable, so he made Tatooine a desert planet instead. Kurtz then researched various desert locales around the globe. He ultimately decided that Southern Tunisia, on the edge of the Sahara, would make an ideal Tatooine. Principal photography began in Chott el Djerid in March 1976. Meanwhile, a construction crew in nearby Tozeur spent eight weeks creating additional Tatooine locations. The scenes of Luke's Tatooine home were filmed at the Hotel Sidi Driss, in Matmata. Additional Tatooine scenes were shot at Death Valley in the United States.

The filmmakers experienced many problems in Tunisia. Production fell behind schedule in the first week due to malfunctioning props and electronic breakdowns. The radio-controlled R2-D2 models functioned poorly. At the end of his first day of filming in March, Daniels was covered in scars and scratches from the costume; this was the first and only time he wore the costume for an entire day. A rare winter rainstorm struck the country, which further disrupted filming. After two and a half weeks in Tunisia, production moved to Elstree Studios in London for interior scenes.

Sound designer Ben Burtt created a library of sounds that Lucas referred to as an "organic soundtrack". Blaster sounds were created by modifying the noise of a steel cable being struck while under tension. Lightsaber sound effects were a combination of the hum of movie projector motors and interference caused by a television set on a shieldless microphone. Burtt discovered the interference sound accidentally while searching for a buzzing, sparking sound to add to the projector hum. For Chewbacca's speech, Burtt combined the sounds of four bears, a badger, a lion, a seal, and a walrus. He achieved Vader's breathing noise by breathing through the mask of a scuba regulator; this process inspired the idea of Vader being a burn victim. The film was mixed in a new six-track stereo layout developed by Dolby Laboratories called "baby boom" that consolidated vocals to the center channel, while the side channels were used to enhance deep bass effects.

In February 1977, Lucas screened an early cut of the film for Fox executives, several director friends, and Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin of Marvel Comics, who were preparing a Star Wars comic book. The cut had a different crawl from the finished version and used Prowse's voice for Vader. It also lacked most special effects; hand-drawn arrows took the place of blaster beams, and footage of World War II dogfights replaced space battles between TIE fighters and the Millennium Falcon. Several of Lucas' friends failed to understand the film, and their reactions disappointed Lucas. Marcia Lucas also was unhappy with the early cut. Steven Spielberg enjoyed it, however, and believed the lack of enthusiasm from others was due to the absence of finished special effects. In contrast, Ladd and the other studio executives loved the film; production executive Gareth Wigan described the experience as the most extraordinary day of his life. Lucas, who was accustomed to negative reactions from studio leadership, found the enthusiasm of the Fox executives shocking and rewarding.

Soundtrack

Lucas initially planned to use pre-existing music for Star Wars, rather than an original score. Since the film portrayed alien worlds, he believed recognizable music was needed to create a sense of familiarity. He hired John Williams as a music consultant, and showed him a collection of orchestral pieces he intended to use for the soundtrack. After Williams convinced Lucas that an original score would be preferable, Lucas tasked him with creating it. A few of the composer's finished pieces were influenced by Lucas' initial orchestral selections. The "Main Title Theme" was inspired by the theme from the 1942 film Kings Row, scored by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and the "Dune Sea of Tatooine" was influenced by the music of the 1948 film Bicycle Thieves, scored by Alessandro Cicognini. Lucas later denied he ever considered using pre-existing music for the film.

Over a period of 12 days in March 1977, Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra recorded the Star Wars score. The soundtrack was released as a double LP in 1977 by 20th Century Fox Records. In 2005, the American Film Institute chose the Star Wars soundtrack as the best film score of all time.

thumb|The logotype that was eventually used in Star Wars and subsequent media in the franchise

The logotype eventually selected for on-screen use originated in a promotional brochure that was distributed by Fox to cinema owners in 1976. The brochure was designed by Suzy Rice, a young art director at the Los Angeles advertising agency Seiniger Advertising. On a visit to ILM in Van Nuys, Rice was instructed by Lucas to produce a "very fascist" logo that would intimidate the viewer. Rice employed an outlined and modified Helvetica Black typeface in her initial version. After some feedback from Lucas, Rice joined the S and T of STAR and the R and S of WARS. Kurtz was impressed with Rice's composition and selected it over Perri's design for the film's opening titles, after flattening the pointed tips of the letter W. ILM artist Joe Johnston was responsible for stacking the two words to create the final graphic. The Star Wars logo became one of the most recognizable designs in cinema, though Rice was not credited in the film.

For the film's US release, Fox commissioned a promotional poster from the advertising agency Smolen, Smith and Connolly. The agency contracted the freelance artist Tom Jung, and gave him the phrase "good over evil" as a starting point. His poster, known as Style 'A, depicts Luke standing in a heroic pose, brandishing a shining lightsaber above his head. Leia is slightly below him, and a large image of Vader's helmet looms behind them. Some Fox executives considered this poster "too dark" and commissioned the Brothers Hildebrandt, a pair of well-known fantasy artists, to modify it for the UK release. When Star Wars opened in British theaters, the Hildebrandts' Style 'B'<nowiki/> poster was used on cinema billboards. Fox and Lucasfilm later decided to promote the film with a less stylized and more realistic depiction of the lead characters, and commissioned a new design from Tom Chantrell. Two months after Star Wars opened, the Hildebrandts' poster was replaced by Chantrell's Style 'C version in UK cinemas.

Fox gave Star Wars little marketing support beyond licensed T-shirts and posters. The film's marketing director, Charley Lippincott, had to look elsewhere for promotional opportunities. He secured deals with Marvel Comics for a comic book adaptation and with Del Rey Books for a novelization. A fan of science fiction, Lippincott used his contacts to promote the film at San Diego Comic-Con and elsewhere within the science-fiction community.

Premiere and initial release

Lucas wanted the film released in May, on the Memorial Day weekend. According to Fox executive Gareth Wigan, "Nobody had ever opened a summer film before school was out." Lucas, however, hoped the school-year release would build word-of-mouth publicity among children. Fox ultimately decided on a release date of May 25, the Wednesday before the holiday weekend. Very few theaters, however, wanted to show Star Wars. To encourage exhibitors to purchase the film, Fox packaged it with The Other Side of Midnight, a film based on the 1973 bestselling book. If a theater wanted to show Midnight, it was required to show Star Wars as well. After Sorcerer failed to meet expectations, Lucas' film was given a second opening at Mann's on August 3. Thousands of people attended a ceremony in which C-3PO, R2-D2 and Darth Vader placed their footprints in the theater's forecourt. Approximately 60 theaters played the film continuously for over a year. In May 1978, Lucasfilm distributed "Birthday Cake" posters to those theaters for special events on the one-year anniversary of the film's release. Star Wars premiered in the United Kingdom on December 27, 1977. News reports of the film's popularity in America caused long lines to form at the two London theaters that first offered the film; it became available in 12 large cities in January 1978, and additional London theaters in February.

The film immediately broke box office records. Three weeks after it opened, Fox's stock price had doubled to a record high. Prior to 1977, the studio's highest annual profit was $37 million. In 1977, it posted a profit of $79 million.

Box office

Star Wars remains one of the most financially successful films of all time. It earned over $2.5 million in its first six days ($ in dollars), including $1.5 million during its first weekend ( in ). According to Variety weekly box office charts, it was number one at the US box office for its first three weeks. It was dethroned by The Deep, but gradually added screens and returned to number one in its seventh week, building up to $7-million weekends ($ in ) as it entered wide release, and remaining number one for the next 15 weeks. It replaced Jaws as the highest-earning film in North America just six months into release, eventually grossing $221.3 million during its initial theatrical run ($ in dollars). Star Wars entered international release towards the end of the year, and in 1978 became the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide. Its biggest international market was Japan, where it grossed $58.4 million.

Star Wars was still playing in 38 US theaters fourteen months after its initial release. On July 21, 1978, it was expanded to 1,744 theaters, and set a new US weekend record of $10.2 million. Star Wars had become the first film to gross $500 million worldwide, and remained the highest-grossing film of all time until E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial set a new record in 1983. Internationally, the re-release grossed $117.2 million, with $26 million from the United Kingdom and $15 million from Japan. At the North American box office, it ranks second behind Gone with the Wind (1939) on the inflation-adjusted list.

Reception

Critical response

According to Entertainment Weekly, many reviewers in 1977 were "overwhelmed" by Star Wars<nowiki/>' charms, with particular praise going to C-3PO, R2-D2 and the Tatooine cantina scene. In the United States, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "an out-of-body experience", while Vincent Canby of The New York Times described it as "the most elaborate... most beautiful movie serial ever made". A.&nbsp;D. Murphy of Variety called the film magnificent, claiming that Lucas had succeeded in his attempt to create the "biggest possible adventure fantasy" based on the serials and action epics of his childhood. Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called the film "a new classic in a rousing movie tradition: a space swashbuckler." Gerald Clarke of Time called Star Wars "grand and glorious" and a "subliminal history of the movies, wrapped in a riveting tale of suspense and adventure, ornamented with some of the most ingenious special effects ever contrived for film." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune thought Star Wars was a fun film with "spectacular" visual effects, but "not a great movie in the sense that it describes the human condition."

In a negative review, Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote that Star Wars lacked "emotional grip". John Simon of New York magazine found the film boring, writing, "Strip Star Wars of its often striking images and its highfalutin scientific jargon, and you get a story, characters, and dialogue of overwhelming banality." Writing in The Nation, Robert Hatch called the film a "compilation of nonsense, largely derived but thoroughly reconditioned." Nevertheless, he predicted it would become a classic. Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader thought the characters of Star Wars lacked depth and existed merely to "keep the action going." Peter Keough of the Boston Phoenix called the film "a junkyard of cinematic gimcracks not unlike the Jawas' heap of purloined, discarded, barely functioning droids."

In the United Kingdom, Barry Norman of Film... called Star Wars "sublime" family entertainment that combines "all the best-loved themes of romantic adventure". The Daily Telegraphs science correspondent Adrian Berry described it as one of the most exciting films in the "space melodrama" genre, and the best since 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). He described the plot as "unpretentious and pleasantly devoid of any 'message'".

In a 1978 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, the scientist Carl Sagan called attention to the overwhelming whiteness of the human characters in the film. Actor Raymond St. Jacques echoed Sagan's complaint, writing that "the terrifying realization... [is] that black people (or any ethnic minority for that matter) shall not exist in the galactic space empires of the future." Writing in the African-American newspaper New Journal and Guide, Walter Bremond claimed that due to his black garb and his being voiced by a black actor, the villainous Vader reinforces a stereotype that "black is evil". Bremond went on to call Star Wars "one of the most racist movies ever produced."

The film continues to receive critical acclaim from contemporary critics. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 90 out of 100, based on 24 critics. In his 1997 review of the film's 20th-anniversary Special Edition release, Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune called it a "grandiose and violent epic with a simple and whimsical heart". SFGate described the Special Edition version as "a thrilling experience". In 2001 Matt Ford of the BBC wrote, "Star Wars isn't the best film ever made, but it is universally loved." Reviewing the 2006 DVD release, Andrew Collins of Empire magazine said that Star Wars "timeless appeal lies in its easily identified, universal archetypes—goodies to root for, baddies to boo, a princess to be rescued and so on—and if it is most obviously dated to the 70s by the special effects, so be it." CinemaScore reported that audiences for the film's 1999 re-release gave the film an "A+" grade.

Accolades

Star Wars won many awards after its release, including six Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, one Golden Globe Award, three Grammy Awards, one Hugo Award, and thirteen Saturn Awards. Additionally, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave a Special Achievement Academy Award to Ben Burtt, and granted a Scientific and Engineering Award to John Dykstra, Alvah J. Miller, and Jerry Jeffress for the development of the Dykstraflex camera system.

{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" border="1"

|-

! Organization

! Category

! Nominee

! Result

|-

| rowspan="12" | Academy Awards

| Best Picture

| Gary Kurtz

|

|-

| Best Director

| George Lucas

|

|-

| Best Supporting Actor

| Alec Guinness

|

|-

| Best Original Screenplay

| George Lucas

|

|-

| Best Art Direction

| John Barry, Norman Reynolds, Leslie Dilley and Roger Christian

|

|-

| Best Costume Design

| John Mollo

|

|-

| Best Film Editing

| Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew

|

|-

| Best Original Score

| John Williams

|

|-

| Best Sound

| Don MacDougall, Ray West, Bob Minkler and Derek Ball

|

|-

| Best Visual Effects

| John Stears, John Dykstra, Richard Edlund, Grant McCune and Robert Blalack

|

|-

| Special Achievement Academy Award

| Ben Burtt

|

|-

| Scientific and Engineering Award

| John Dykstra, Alvah J. Miller and Jerry Jeffress

|

|-

| American Music Awards

| Favorite Pop/Rock Album

| John Williams

|

|-

| rowspan="6" | BAFTA Awards

| Best Film

| Gary Kurtz

|

|-

| Best Costume Design

| John Mollo

|

|-

| Best Editing

| Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew

|

|-

| Best Original Music

| John Williams

|

|-

| Best Production Design

| John Barry

|

|-

| Best Sound

| Sam Shaw, Robert Rutledge, Gordon Davidson, Gene Corso, Derek Ball, Don MacDougall, Bob Minkler, Ray West, Michael Minkler, Les Fresholtz, Richard Portman and Ben Burtt

|

|-

| Directors Guild of America Awards

| Outstanding Directing – Feature Film

| George Lucas

|

|-

| rowspan="4" | Golden Globe Awards

| Best Motion Picture – Drama

| Gary Kurtz

|

|-

| Best Director

| George Lucas

|

|-

| Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture

| Alec Guinness

|

|-

| Best Original Score

| John Williams

|

|-

| rowspan="3" | Grammy Awards

| Best Instrumental Composition

| John Williams

|

|-

| Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special

| John Williams

|

|-

| Best Pop Instrumental Performance

| John Williams

|

|-

| Hugo Awards

| Best Dramatic Presentation

| George Lucas

|

|-

| rowspan="17" | Saturn Awards

| Best Science Fiction Film

| Gary Kurtz

|

|-

| Best Director

| George Lucas

|

|-

| rowspan="2" | Best Actor

| Harrison Ford

|

|-

| Mark Hamill

|

|-

| Best Actress

| Carrie Fisher

|

|-

| rowspan="2" | Best Supporting Actor

| Alec Guinness

|

|-

| Peter Cushing

|

|-

| Best Writing

| George Lucas

|

|-

| Best Costume Design

| John Mollo

|

|-

| Best Make-up

| Rick Baker and Stuart Freeborn

|

|-

| Best Music

| John Williams

|

|-

| Best Special Effects

| John Dykstra and John Stears

|

|-

| Best Art Direction

| Norman Reynolds and Leslie Dilley

|

|-

| Best Cinematography

| Gilbert Taylor

|

|-

| Best Editing

| Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew

|

|-

| Best Set Decoration

| Roger Christian

|

|-

| Best Sound

| Ben Burtt and Don MacDougall

|

|-

| Writers Guild of America Awards

| Best Original Screenplay

| George Lucas

|

|}

In its May 30, 1977 issue, Time named Star Wars the "Movie of the Year". It has also been featured in several high-profile audience polls: In 1997, it ranked as the 10th Greatest American Film on the Los Angeles Daily News Readers' Poll; in 2002, Star Wars and its sequel The Empire Strikes Back were voted the greatest films ever made in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Films poll; in 2011, Star Wars ranked as Best Sci-Fi Film on Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, a primetime special aired by ABC that ranked the best films as chosen by fans, based on results of a poll conducted by ABC and People magazine; and in 2014, the film placed 11th in a poll by The Hollywood Reporter, which balloted every studio, agency, publicity firm, and production house in the Hollywood region.

In 2008, Empire magazine ranked Star Wars 22nd on its list of the "500 Greatest Movies of All Time". In 2010, the film ranked among the "All-Time 100" list of the greatest films as chosen by Time film critic Richard Schickel.

In 2006, Lucas' screenplay was selected by the Writers Guild of America as the 68th greatest of all time. In 1989, the United States Library of Congress named Star Wars among its first selections to the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"—at the time, it was the most recent film to be selected and it was the only film from the 1970s to be chosen. Although Lucas declined to provide the Library with a workable copy of the original film upon request (instead offering the Special Edition), a viewable scan was made of the original copyright deposit print. The film's soundtrack was added to the United States National Recording Registry in 2004. The lack of a commercially available version of the original 1977 theatrical edit of the film since early 1980s VHS releases has motivated fans to create numerous restorations, such as Harmy's Despecialized Edition.

In addition to the film's multiple awards and nominations, Star Wars has also been recognized by the American Film Institute on several of its lists. The film ranks first on 100 Years of Film Scores,

Post-release

Theatrical re-releases

Star Wars was re-released theatrically in 1978, 1979, 1981, and 1982. The subtitles Episode IV and A New Hope were added for the 1981 re-release. This brought the film into line with its 1980 sequel, which was titled on-screen as Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back. Lucas claims the subtitles were intended from the beginning, but were dropped for Star Wars to avoid confusing audiences. Kurtz said they considered calling the first film Episode III, IV, or V, to capture the experience of encountering a Flash Gordon serial halfway through its run. However, Michael Kaminski and Chris Taylor point out that multiple early screenplay drafts of Star Wars were subtitled "Episode One" and that early drafts of Empire were called "Episode&nbsp;II".

In 1997, Star Wars was digitally remastered with some altered scenes for a theatrical re-release, dubbed the "Special Edition". In 2010, Lucas announced that all six previously released Star Wars films would be scanned and transferred to 3D for a theatrical release, but only 3D versions of the prequel trilogy were completed before the franchise was sold to Disney in 2012. In 2013, Star Wars became the first major motion picture to be dubbed into the Navajo language. In 2025, the film's original print was screened—for the first time since its initial theatrical run—at a British Film Institute event.

In honor of Star Wars<nowiki/>' 50th anniversary, the 1977 theatrical cut of the film will be re-released to theaters on February 19, 2027.

Special Edition

thumb|upright=0.75|The theatrical release poster for the 1997 Special Edition

For its 20th anniversary in 1997, Star Wars and its two sequels were digitally remastered—with updated effects and re-edited scenes—and re-released to theaters as "Special Editions". The Special Edition of Star Wars contains 277 enhanced shots that were unachievable in the original film due to financial, technological and time constraints. A particularly controversial change in which the bounty hunter Greedo shoots first when confronting Han Solo has inspired the saying "Han shot first".

Star Wars required extensive recovery of misfiled footage and restoration of the whole film before Lucas' modifications could be made. Part of the film negative used Color Reversal Internegative (CRI) film, a unique reversal stock which deteriorated faster than typical negative stocks. As a result, every CRI shot had to be removed and cleaned separately from the negative portions. Once cleaning was complete, the film was digitally scanned for restoration. In many cases, entire scenes had to be reconstructed from their individual elements. Digital compositing also enabled the restoration team to correct for problems such as misalignment of mattes and blue-spill. The process of creating the new visual effects was explored in Ben Burtt's 1996 documentary Special Effects: Anything Can Happen. The enhancement of the films for the Special Editions also allowed ILM to test digital effects for the upcoming Star Wars prequel trilogy.

In 1989, the 1977 theatrical version of Star Wars was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress.

Home media

In the United States, France, West Germany, Italy and Japan, Star Wars was released in its entirety or in parts on Super 8. Short scenes were also released on cassettes for the Kenner Movie Viewer toy projector. The film was released on Betamax, CED, LaserDisc, Video 2000, and VHS during the 1980s and 1990s by CBS/Fox Video. The final VHS issue of the original theatrical release (pre-Special Edition) occurred in 1995, as part of a "Last Chance to Own the Original" campaign, and was available as part of a trilogy set or as a standalone purchase. It was the first VHS release to be THX certified.

Star Wars was first released on DVD on September 21, 2004, in a box set with The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and a bonus disc of supplementary material. The films were digitally restored and remastered, and more changes were made by Lucas (in addition to those made for the 1997 Special Edition). The DVD features a commentary track from Lucas, Fisher, Burtt and visual effects artist Dennis Muren. The bonus disc contains the 2004 documentary Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, three featurettes, teaser and theatrical trailers, television spots, image galleries, an exclusive preview of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), a playable Xbox demo of the LucasArts game Star Wars: Battlefront (2004), and a making-of documentary about the Episode III video game. The set was reissued in December 2005 as a three-disc limited edition without the bonus disc.

The trilogy was re-released on separate two-disc limited edition DVD sets from September 12 to December 31, 2006, and again in a limited edition box set on November 4, 2008; the original theatrical versions of the films were added as bonus material. The release was met with criticism because the unaltered versions were from the 1993 non-anamorphic LaserDisc masters, and were not re-transferred using modern video standards, which led to problems with colors, image quality, and digital image jarring.

On September 16, 2011, all six Star Wars films that existed at the time were released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on Blu-ray, in three different editions. A New Hope was included in a box set of the original trilogy, and also in the nine-disc set Star Wars: The Complete Saga, which contains the other five films, as well as over 40 hours of special features. Some new alterations were made to the films in these editions, which provoked mixed reactions from some fans.

On April 7, 2015, Walt Disney Studios, Twentieth Century Fox, and Lucasfilm jointly announced the digital releases of the six existing Star Wars films. Fox released A New Hope for digital download on April 10, 2015, while Disney released the other five films. Disney reissued A New Hope on Blu-ray, DVD, and for digital download on September 22, 2019. Additionally, all six films were available for 4K resolution HDR and Dolby Atmos streaming on Disney+ upon the service's launch on November 12, 2019. This version of A New Hope was also released by Disney in a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray box set on March 31, 2020.

Merchandising

Little Star Wars merchandise was available for several months after the film's debut, as only Kenner Products had accepted marketing director Charles Lippincott's licensing offers. Kenner responded to the sudden demand for toys by selling boxed vouchers in its "empty box" Christmas campaign. Television commercials told children and parents that vouchers contained in a "Star Wars Early Bird Certificate Package" could be redeemed for four action figures between February and June 1978. Jay West of the Los Angeles Times said that the boxes in the campaign "became the most coveted empty box[es] in the history of retail." In 2012, the Star Wars action figures were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame.

The novelization of the film was published as Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker by Del Rey Books in December 1976, six months before the film was released. The credited author was George Lucas, but the book was ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster. By February 1977, a half million copies had been sold.

Marvel Comics adapted the film as the first six issues of its licensed Star Wars comic book, with the first issue sold in April 1977. The comic was written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Howard Chaykin. Like the novelization, it contained certain elements, such as the scene with Luke and Biggs, that appeared in the screenplay but not in the finished film. From January to April 1997, Dark Horse Comics, which had held the comic rights to Star Wars since 1991, published a comic adaptation of the Special Edition version of the film. In September 2013, Dark Horse began publishing The Star Wars, an adaptation of Lucas' original rough draft screenplay.

In 1979, Lucasfilm adapted Star Wars for a children's book-and-record set. The 24-page read-along book was accompanied by a &nbsp;rpm 7-inch phonograph record. Each page of the book contained a cropped frame from the movie with a condensed version of the story. The record was produced by Buena Vista Records, and its content was copyrighted by Black Falcon, Ltd., a subsidiary of Lucasfilm.

Cinematic and literary allusions

Before creating Star Wars, Lucas had hoped to make a Flash Gordon film, but was unable to obtain the rights. Star Wars features many elements ostensibly derived from Flash Gordon, such as the conflict between rebels and imperial forces; the wipe transitions between scenes; and the text crawl at the beginning of the film. Lucas also reportedly drew from Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces and Akira Kurosawa's 1958 film The Hidden Fortress. Tim Robey of The Telegraph has suggested that the Mos Eisley cantina brawl was influenced by Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961), and that the scene in which Luke and his friends hide under the floor of the Millennium Falcon was derived from that film's sequel, Sanjuro (1962).

Writing for Starwars.com in 2013, Bryan Young noted many similarities between Star Wars and the World War II film The Dam Busters (1955). In Star Wars, rebel ships assault the Death Star by diving into a trench and attempting to fire torpedoes into a small exhaust port; in Dam Busters, British bombers fly along heavily defended reservoirs and aim bouncing bombs at dams to cripple the heavy industry of Germany. Lucas used clips from both Dam Busters and 1964's 633 Squadron—another war film with a climactic bomber run through narrow fjords—to illustrate his vision for dogfights in Star Wars. Star Wars has also been compared to Metropolis (1927) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). Frank DeCaro of The New York Times wrote that Star Wars "littered pop culture of the late 1970s with a galaxy of space junk." as "television's two most infamous examples." Mel Brooks' Spaceballs, a satirical comic science-fiction parody, was released in 1987 to mixed reviews. Lucas permitted Brooks to make a spoof of the film under "one incredibly big restriction: no action figures." In the 1990s and 2000s, the television shows Family Guy, Robot Chicken, and The Simpsons produced episodes satirizing the Star Wars films. A Nerdist article published in 2021 argues that Star Wars is the most influential film in history, partly on the basis that if every copy of the film disappeared, the entire film could possibly be recreated using other media, including parodies.

Many elements of Star Wars are prominent in popular culture. Darth Vader, Han Solo, and Yoda were all named in the top twenty of the British Film Institute's "Best Sci-Fi Characters of All-Time" list. The expressions "Evil empire" and "May the Force be with you" have become part of the popular lexicon. To commemorate the film's 30th anniversary in May 2007, the United States Postal Service issued a set of 15 stamps depicting the characters of the franchise. Approximately 400 mailboxes across the U.S. were designed to look like R2-D2 for the anniversary.

Star Wars and Lucas are the subject of the 2010 documentary film The People vs. George Lucas, which explores filmmaking and fandom as they pertain to the film franchise and its creator. Harrison Ford, who subsequently starred in the Indiana Jones series (1981–2023), Blade Runner (1982), and Witness (1985), told the Daily Mirror that Star Wars "boosted" his career. Star Wars also spawned the Star Wars Holiday Special, which aired on CBS on November 17, 1978. The special is often considered a failure, and Lucas himself disowned it.

Cinematic influence

In his book The Great Movies, Roger Ebert called Star Wars "a technical watershed" that influenced many subsequent films. It began a new generation of special effects and high-energy motion pictures, and was one of the first films to link genres together to invent a new, high-concept genre for filmmakers to build upon.

Filmmakers who have been influenced by Star Wars include J. J. Abrams, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Dean Devlin, Gareth Edwards, Roland Emmerich, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, Damon Lindelof, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, Kevin Smith, On a 1977 episode of Sneak Previews, Gene Siskel said he hoped Hollywood would continue to cater to audiences who enjoy "serious pictures". Peter Biskind claimed that Lucas and Spielberg "returned the 1970s audience, grown sophisticated on a diet of European and New Hollywood films, to the simplicities of the pre-1960s Golden Age of movies... They marched backward through the looking-glass." In contrast, Tom Shone wrote that through Star Wars and Jaws, Lucas and Spielberg did not betray cinema, but instead "plugged it back into the grid, returning it... to its roots as a carnival sideshow, a magic act, one big special effect", which amounted to "a kind of rebirth." Both were financially successful and fared well with critics. The original trilogy is widely considered one of the best film trilogies in history.

The Story of Star Wars, an audio drama adaptation of the film utilizing some of its music, dialogue, and sound effects, was released as a record album in 1977. A radio drama adaptation of Star Wars was broadcast on the American National Public Radio (NPR) network in 1981. It was written by Brian Daley and directed by John Madden, and was produced with cooperation from George Lucas, who donated the rights to NPR. Williams' music and Burtt's sound design were retained for the show, and Hamill and Daniels reprised their roles. The narrative began with a backstory to the film, recounting Leia's acquisition of the Death Star plans. It also featured scenes not seen in the final cut of the film, such as Luke's observation of the space battle above Tatooine, a skyhopper race, and Vader's interrogation of Leia. The radio version was originally part of the official Star Wars canon, but has since been supplanted by revised canonical narratives.

More than twenty years after the release of Star Wars, Lucas created a prequel trilogy, consisting of the films The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005). The trilogy chronicles the history between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, concluding with Anakin's fall to the Dark Side and transformation into Darth Vader. The prequel trilogy was financially successful, but certain plot threads and new characters polarized critics and fans. After Lucas sold the Star Wars franchise to the Walt Disney Company in 2012, Disney produced a sequel trilogy, consisting of The Force Awakens (2015), The Last Jedi (2017), and The Rise of Skywalker (2019). Original trilogy cast members including Ford, Hamill, and Fisher reprised their roles. In 2016, Disney released the standalone film Rogue One, which depicts the successful rebel attempt to steal the Death Star plans. It serves as a direct prequel to Star Wars, ending where Star Wars begins. Other standalone films and television series have also been released.

See also

  • List of cult films

Notes

References

Works cited

Further reading

Books

  • Duncan, Paul (2020). The Star Wars Archives. 1977–1983, Taschen GmbH; Anniversary edition.
  • Eagan, Daniel (2010). "Star Wars", America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, pp.&nbsp;740–741. A&C Black. .
  • Galipeau, Steven A. (2001). The Journey of Luke Skywalker: An Analysis of Modern Myth and Symbol, Open Court,
  • Grimes, Caleb; Winship, George (2006). "Episode IV: A New Hope". Star Wars Jesus: A spiritual commentary on the reality of the Force. WinePress Publishing. .
  • Lucas, George (Foster, Alan Dean); Glut, Donald F.; Kahn, James (2017). Star Wars: Original Trilogy (novelizations). Arrow.

Other

  • at StarWars.com
  • at Lucasfilm.com
  • Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) at Filmsite.org