Star Wars

Star Wars For Everybody!

Star Wars Films History
by C.E.Bone

The today's generation of children are not new to the Star Wars Saga. Star Wars movies have been rerun and animated for years and are still highly popular. Every day there are Star Wars comics and reruns on TV or DVD. Toys, clothing, collectible are found in every home.

Star Wars was one of those 4 fantastic films that was an instant phenomenon when it hit the box office and continues to be a hit today. Why not take a moment to follow the intriguing history of Star Wars. But some only know the story piecemeal. Here is a story about how Star Wars came about.

After a successful run in the early 1970s with the box office hit American Graffiti; in 1975 George Lucas writes a basic story about Anakin Skywalker's rise, fall, and redemption. The story is so long that it needs to be divided into 2 trilogies.

The first trilogyis abou tAnakin Skywalker's young life while the second focuses on the life of Anakin's son Luke Skywalker. Since the second trilogy is the most interesting, Lucas decides to film it first.

He offers the film to Universal Studios who had financed his American Graffiti film, but they chose to pass thinking it was a stupid movie. They would live to regret this decision which would cost millions of dollars in lost profits. But they wouldn't be alone in those regrets as every Hollywood studio passed on the movie. That is except for 20th Century Fox who came up with $10 million for Lucas to make his first Star Wars movie a dream come true.

In May of 1977 Fox released Episode 4 of Star Wars, A New Hope. The tone was quickly set. The film was instantly seen as the biggest adventure ever on film. The special effects were considered magnificent and outstanding. In fact, nothing remotely close had ever made it to the big screen before.

On opening day, the Star Wars movie ran in only 32 theatres, but it still produced a lucrative$254,309 in ticket sales. By the end of its first run it had become the most successful film ever in North American history grossing more than $290 million.

Lucas reportedly received $50 million of those profits. When Lucas cut his deal with Fox he was more interested in control of the film then he was in his percentage. He wanted all rights to the final cut and all rights to future sequels, Star Wars merchandise rights, and 40% of the gross. This deal ultimately made Lucas a billionaire.

By 1978 Lucas had purchased the more than 1800 acre Bulltail Ranch in San Rafael and soon production of the sequel to Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, was underway. Lucas was financing it out of his own pocket and it had a budget of $18 million; however due to budget overruns the actual filming cost more than $30 million. In May of 1980, The Empire Strike Back, hit the theatres grossing $222 million, making it the highest grossing film of the year.

In May of 1983, Return of the Jedi, hit the movies grossing $265 million in North America and Lucas decides to retire from Star Wars projects to pursue some of his other interests. He made a vague promise to make the Prequel Trilogy someday if special effects ever become advanced enough.

That day arrived in 1994 when Lucas announces he will begin working on the Prequel Trilogy with a tentative release scheduled for 1998. In 1996 Lucas signs the biggest deal ever seen in the industry with PepsiCo for movie tie ins, and later in the year he announces that the pre-production has started, and in May of 1999 Episode 1 titled, The Phantom Menace, was released, followed by Episode 2 titled, The Attack of the Clones.

Many believe that 100 years from now Star Wars will still have a following. In fact by then it may have grown to epidemic proportions.
The Imperial Shuttle was in the movie"The Empire Strikes Back" and was a light utility ship for transporting Star Wars Emperor Palpatine with troops and high ranking officers. It had a crew of six. It was so well armed it could fly across the galaxy without escort. This made for a great covert operations shuttle.

In fact, there are thousands of Star Wars products and a new generation of star wars fans to enjoy. There is clothing, movies, posters, toys, you name it and there is a star wars version. Lego, known for their building block toys has hundreds of Star Wars Lego Toys, as do many other brands of toys.

Lego Star Wars - For the millionth time, i didn't make this