Star Wars original trilogy

• 1. Introduction

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  Star Wars opened in theaters on the 25th of May 1977, and within weeks had displaced Jaws as the highest-grossing film ever made. That feat alone would be remarkable. But the deeper question is how a space opera conceived by a filmmaker who could not get the rights to Flash Gordon became the defining pop-culture franchise of the late twentieth century, one that reshaped not only science fiction but the entire blockbuster industry.

  Three films sit at the center of this story: Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983). Together they trace the Galactic Civil War between a ragged Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire, and follow a farmboy named Luke Skywalker on a hero's journey toward becoming a Jedi knight. Produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by 20th Century Fox, all three were eventually inducted into the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as works that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.

  Yet the trilogy almost never existed in the form audiences came to know. The man behind it wrote draft after draft, renegotiated his contract to claw back sequel and merchandising rights, and hired a team of collaborators whose contributions would shape the saga as profoundly as his own. The story of how these three films were made, what they said about power and politics, and what happened when Lucas kept revising them long after their release is the story that follows.

• 2. From Flash Gordon to Tatooine

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  In 1971, George Lucas set out to make a film adaptation of the Flash Gordon serial. The rights were not available. Forced to build his own science fiction universe from scratch, he drew on the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs and began shaping what would become one of cinema's most enduring fictional worlds.

  Directly after completing American Graffiti in 1973, Lucas wrote a two-page synopsis for a space opera he called Journal of the Whills. United Artists, Universal Studios, and Disney all passed on the project. Only 20th Century Fox agreed to invest.

  On the 17th of April 1973, Lucas produced a 13-page treatment titled The Star Wars, strongly influenced by Akira Kurosawa's 1958 film The Hidden Fortress. By May 1974, that treatment had grown into a full first draft, and with it came new elements: the Sith, the Death Star. The script had become too long for a single film.

  Lucas read Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces between drafts and found his story already following, as he put it, classical motifs. The discovery confirmed rather than redirected his instincts. Early drafts carried names that would not survive to production: the hero was Luke Starkiller, and a character named Annikin appeared as his wise Jedi father.

  Negotiations with Fox produced a contract that would prove extraordinarily consequential. Lucas retained the sequel rights, received fees to write, produce, and direct the film, and secured ownership of 40 percent of the merchandising profits. His lawyer Tom Pollock later described the sequel-rights agreement plainly: Fox would get a first opportunity and last refusal right to make the movie, and that was it. The merchandising windfall that followed was not part of the original deal.

  Harrison Ford arrived in the project almost by accident. He had given up on acting to try carpentry when Lucas hired him to play Han Solo, drawing on Ford's earlier work together on American Graffiti.

• 3. The Films Themselves

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  Star Wars was released on the 25th of May 1977. The story begins in medias res: the Empire intercepts the Rebel ship Tantive IV above Tatooine, captures Princess Leia Organa, and sets in motion a chain of events that draws farmboy Luke Skywalker into the galactic conflict. With the droid R2-D2 carrying stolen plans for the Death Star and a message for Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke and Obi-Wan recruit smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot Chewbacca to fly the Millennium Falcon toward Alderaan, only to find it destroyed. Captured by the Death Star itself, they rescue Leia and deliver the plans to the Rebel Alliance. The film ends with the destruction of the Death Star and a decisive victory for the Rebellion.

  The film's success was unanticipated by Lucas himself. At the time of the fourth draft, he was not expecting the film to warrant full-scale sequels. His fallback plan was to adapt the two novels he had commissioned from Alan Dean Foster into low-budget follow-ups if the main film performed. Instead, Star Wars exceeded all expectations, surpassed Jaws at the box office, and gave Lucas the profits to finance Skywalker Ranch and fund proper sequels himself.

  The Empire Strikes Back arrived on the 21st of May 1980. Three years after the Death Star's destruction, the Empire scatters the Rebel Alliance from its base on the ice planet Hoth. Luke travels to Dagobah to train under Yoda, the last living Jedi master. Vader lures Luke into a trap at Cloud City by capturing Han and Leia, and Han is frozen in carbonite and turned over to Jabba the Hutt. The film's climax delivers one of the most famous plot twists in cinema: during a duel, Vader tells Luke that he is his father.

  Return of the Jedi, released on the 25th of May 1983, opens roughly a year after Han's capture. Luke, Leia, and Lando Calrissian rescue Han from Jabba the Hutt. Luke returns to Dagobah, where a dying Yoda confirms Vader's identity and reveals that Leia is Luke's sister. The final battle plays out across two fronts: the Rebels attack a second Death Star while Luke confronts Vader and the Emperor. Luke refuses to join the dark side; Emperor Palpatine unleashes Force lightning on him; Vader intervenes, saves his son, and dies. Lando destroys the Death Star. The Empire falls.

  The sequels were self-financed by Lucasfilm. Their opening crawls carried episodic numbers that the marketing materials largely set aside.

• 4. Writing and the Drafts

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  Leigh Brackett finished her draft for The Empire Strikes Back by early 1978, then died of cancer before Lucas could discuss the changes he wanted her to make. Her death left Lucas to write the next draft himself, the first Star Wars screenplay to use episodic numbering. He found it enjoyable to write, and quickly produced two more drafts in April 1978, a sharp contrast to the year-long struggle the first film had cost him.

  The revelation that Vader is Luke's father arrived in those drafts and changed everything. Once that plot twist was fixed in place, Lucas fleshed out the backstory connecting Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the Emperor. With this new architecture in mind, he concluded the series should be a trilogy of trilogies.

  Lawrence Kasdan, who had just finished writing Raiders of the Lost Ark, was brought in to draft subsequent versions of The Empire Strikes Back. Director Irvin Kershner contributed additional input. Kasdan, Kershner, and producer Gary Kurtz shared a view of the second film as a more serious and adult story, pushing away from the lighter adventure tone of the original.

  Return of the Jedi carried its own tensions behind the camera. Harrison Ford had not originally agreed to appear in a third film and was persuaded to return only on the condition that Han Solo would die. Producer Gary Kurtz wanted an ending far darker than what reached screens: Han dead, the Rebel forces scattered, Leia struggling to govern, Luke walking off alone like a figure from a Spaghetti Western. Lucas preferred a happier conclusion, partly because it would encourage toy sales. The disagreement led to Kurtz leaving the production.

  The original film's title went through its own evolution during production. The working title The Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars was eventually trimmed to The Star Wars and then simply Star Wars. The subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope appeared first in the screenplay published in the 1979 book The Art of Star Wars, then accompanied the theatrical re-release in 1981.

• 5. Politics, War, and the Used Universe

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  Darth Vader's visual design drew initially from Samurai armor, then incorporated a German military helmet. Lucas originally conceived of the Sith as a group serving the Emperor in the same way the Schutzstaffel served Adolf Hitler, but condensed that entire apparatus into the single figure of Vader.

  The World War II references run throughout the trilogy. Imperial officers wear uniforms resembling those of German forces from that conflict. Political and security officers were designed to echo the black-clad SS down to the stylized silver death's head on their caps. Stormtroopers take their name from World War I shock troops. The planet Kessel is named after a German military term for encircled forces. Hoth takes its name from Hermann Hoth, a German general who served on the snow-covered Eastern Front.

  Space battles in the original film drew directly from footage of aerial dogfights from both world wars. Shots of commanders peering through the viewscreens of AT-AT walkers in The Empire Strikes Back were composed to resemble the interiors of tanks.

  Lucas also drew parallels between Emperor Palpatine and a range of historical figures: Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and politicians including Richard Nixon. The trilogy frames its central conflict as a struggle between democracy and dictatorship, a theme Lucas considered present in Star Wars since the franchise launched in 1977.

  The physical texture of the world was equally deliberate. Unlike science fiction that presents gleaming futuristic environments, Lucas built what he called a used universe, a galaxy that looks worn, dirty, and lived in. This aesthetic borrowed from the period films of Akira Kurosawa, which like the Star Wars films often began in medias res without offering a complete backstory to orient the viewer.

• 6. Re-releases and Revisions

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  The original Star Wars was re-released theatrically in 1978, 1979, 1981, and 1982. All three films circulated on LaserDisc and VHS through 1996.

  In 1997, Lucas released a Special Edition of all three films with additions and changes. Some alterations were negatively received by audiences. The VHS releases of these versions replaced the original cuts in the commercial marketplace, and were intended partly to build interest ahead of the prequel trilogy.

  The special edition of Star Wars made its broadcast premiere on the 5th of February 1998, on WB stations across the country, including in New York and Los Angeles. A DVD release in 2004 introduced further changes designed to bring the trilogy into continuity with the prequels. A 2006 re-release added bonus discs containing versions of the original films transferred from the 1993 LaserDiscs.

  In 2011, box sets appeared on Blu-ray, both individually and as combined original-and-prequel trilogy packages, each carrying another round of changes.

  After Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, a planned 3D re-release of the entire six-film franchise was canceled in 2013 so resources could focus on The Force Awakens. Kathleen Kennedy, who had been president of Lucasfilm since the 2012 acquisition, stated in 2019 that she would not alter Lucas's original trilogy because, in her words, those will always remain his.

  Director J. J. Abrams described, while promoting The Rise of Skywalker, a disagreement during the making of The Force Awakens about specific dialogue between Vader and the Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back, which resolved only when the parties realized they were each referring to a different version of the film. He cited the fan-created Despecialized Editions as a reference point. The question of whether an official release of the unaltered theatrical versions remains possible has never been formally resolved.

  By 2015, the original Star Wars had been transferred to a 2K scan held by the Library of Congress, viewable by appointment, because the Library's copyright deposit print of the original theatrical release was discovered after 35 mm reels of the 1997 Special Edition had initially been submitted for preservation.

• 7. Box Office and Awards

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  Star Wars was made on a budget of eleven million dollars and earned just under $461 million in North America alone. Adjusted for inflation, that figure reaches roughly $1.6 billion. The Empire Strikes Back cost $33 million and earned about $290 million domestically. Return of the Jedi was budgeted at $32.5 million and took in approximately $309 million in North America.

  At the 50th Academy Awards, the original Star Wars won six of its eleven nominations. The Empire Strikes Back received a Special Achievement Award at the 53rd Academy Awards. Return of the Jedi was recognized at the 56th Academy Awards. Categories across the three films covered Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Costume Design, Best Original Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects.

  Critics on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes rate Star Wars at 93 percent, with an average rating of 8.80 out of 10 across 140 reviews. The Empire Strikes Back scores 95 percent from 111 reviews, with a 9.00 average. Return of the Jedi holds 83 percent from 103 reviews. All three received an A+ CinemaScore from opening-weekend audiences.

  The Library of Congress selected the original Star Wars for the National Film Registry in 1989. The Empire Strikes Back was added in 2010. Return of the Jedi followed in 2021. The qualification in each case is that the film is culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.

• 8. Legacy and Influence

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  The trilogy's reach into popular culture has been wide enough to produce references across television series including The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, and Robot Chicken, films including Clerks, Free Guy, and Toy Story 2, and politics, where Ted Kennedy applied the nickname Star Wars to Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative.

  Filmmakers who have cited the trilogy's artistic and technological influence include Ridley Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher, Joss Whedon, Peter Jackson, and Christopher Nolan, as well as sequel trilogy director J. J. Abrams. The franchise spawned a multi-million-dollar merchandising empire, countless television series, hundreds of video games, books and comics, and theme park attractions at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

  The careers of the trilogy's principal cast were shaped by the films. Mark Hamill played Luke Skywalker, Carrie Fisher played Princess Leia, Harrison Ford played Han Solo, Anthony Daniels played C-3PO, Kenny Baker played R2-D2, Peter Mayhew played Chewbacca, James Earl Jones voiced Darth Vader, Billy Dee Williams played Lando Calrissian, and Warwick Davis played Wicket W. Warrick.

  The prequel trilogy, released between 1999 and 2005, was directed entirely by Lucas and featured Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Liam Neeson, and Samuel L. Jackson alongside returning cast members. After completing those six films, Lucas stated that no further sequels would be made. Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 and produced a sequel trilogy running from 2015 to 2019, with Lucas having little direct involvement. The combined nine films carry the designation the Skywalker Saga, a label used to distinguish them from stand-alone spin-off films set in the same fictional universe.