43 Facts About Star Wars (Film)

Star Wars is a 1977 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas, produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by 20th Century Fox.

Star Wars was released in a limited number of theaters in the United States on May 25,1977 and quickly became a blockbuster hit, leading to it being expanded to a much wider release.

Star Wars used these initial names and ideas to compile a two-page synopsis titled 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.

Star Wars changed Starkiller to an adolescent boy, and he shifted the general into a supporting role as a member of a family of dwarfs.

Star Wars based Chewbacca on his Alaskan Malamute dog, Indiana, who often acted as the director's "co-pilot" by sitting in the passenger seat of his car.

Related searches

Lucas completed a second draft in January 1975 as Adventures of the Starkiller, Episode One: The Star Wars, making heavy simplifications and introducing the young hero on a farm as Luke Starkiller.

Star Wars realized that it was too long for a single film, and decided to subdivide it into a trilogy.

Star Wars would continue to tweak the script during filming, including adding the death of Obi-Wan after realizing he served no purpose in the ending of the film.

Star Wars has no points of reference to Earth time or space, with which we are familiar, and it is not about the future but some galactic past or some extra-temporal present, it is a decidedly inhabited and used place where the hardware is taken for granted.

Star Wars commissioned production designers John Barry and Roger Christian, who were working on the sets of the film Lucky Lady when Lucas first approached them, to work on the production sets.

Star Wars suggested that Lucas use scrap in making the dressings, and the director agreed.

Star Wars eventually withdrew to work on the Vincente Minnelli-directed A Matter of Time instead, which "really annoy[ed]" Kurtz.

Star Wars asked to set up one shot on the robots with a 300mm, and the sand and sky just mushed together.

Star Wars required the use of nine different sound stages simultaneously, which most studios couldn't accommodate.

Star Wars often made requests for more time to shoot, but they were usually turned down.

Star Wars was originally slated for release on Christmas 1976; however, its production delays pushed the film's release to mid-1977.

Star Wars found that the pace was dictated by the actors instead of the cuts.

Star Wars had spent half of its budget on four shots that Lucas deemed unacceptable.

Star Wars borrows heavily from another Kurosawa film, Yojimbo.

Arrakis is the only known source of a longevity spice; Star Wars makes references to spice in "the spice mines of Kessel", and a spice freighter.

Opening shot of Star Wars, in which a detailed spaceship fills the screen overhead, is a reference to the scene introducing the interplanetary spacecraft Discovery One in Stanley Kubrick's seminal 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The Death Star Wars has a docking bay reminiscent of the one on the orbiting space station in 2001.

Two months after Star Wars opened, the Hildebrandts' poster was replaced by Chantrell's Style 'C' poster in UK cinemas.

Star Wars secured deals with Marvel Comics for a comic book adaptation, and with Del Rey Books for a novelization.

Star Wars debuted on Wednesday, May 25,1977, in fewer than 32 theaters, and eight more on Thursday and Friday.

Related searches

Star Wars was still skeptical of the film's success, even with enthusiastic reports from Ladd and the studio.

When Star Wars made an unprecedented second opening at Mann's Chinese Theatre on August 3,1977, after Sorcerer failed, thousands of people attended a ceremony in which C-3PO, R2-D2 and Darth Vader placed their footprints in the theater's forecourt.

Star Wars was re-released theatrically in 1978,1979,1981 and 1982, with the subtitles Episode IV and A New Hope being added in 1981.

In 2013, Star Wars was dubbed into Navajo, making it the first major motion picture translated into a Native American language.

The process of creating the new visual effects for Star Wars was featured in the documentary film, Special Effects: Anything Can Happen, directed by Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt.

Star Wars required extensive recovery of misplaced footage and restoration of the whole film before Lucas's Special Edition modifications could be attempted.

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.

All six Star Wars films were released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on Blu-ray Disc on September 16,2011 in three different editions, with A New Hope available in both a box set of the original trilogy and with all six films on Star Wars: The Complete Saga, which includes nine discs and over 40 hours of special features.

In December 2016, Rogue One director Gareth Edwards revealed that Lucasfilm had recently completed a 4K restoration of Star Wars, but did not elaborate on whether the restored version was based on the 1977 original or a subsequent re-release.

Star Wars remains one of the most financially successful films of all time.

Star Wars entered international release towards the end of the year, and in 1978 added the worldwide record to its domestic one, earning $410 million in total.

When Star Wars opened in the UK Derek Malcolm of The Guardian concluded that it "plays enough games to satisfy the most sophisticated", though he stated that Lucas's earlier films were better.

The Daily Telegraphs science correspondent Adrian Berry said that Star Wars "is the best such film since 2001 and in certain respects it is one of the most exciting ever made".

Star Wars won six competitive Academy Awards at the 50th Academy Awards: Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound and Best Visual Effects.

Filmmakers who have said to have been influenced by Star Wars include James Cameron, JJ Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Dean Devlin, Gareth Edwards, Roland Emmerich, John Lasseter, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, Joss Whedon, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, John Singleton, and Kevin Smith.

Star Wars was voted the second most popular film by Americans in a 2008 nationwide poll conducted by the market research firm, Harris Interactive.

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.

Star Wars was followed by The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and Return of the Jedi in 1983, which concludes the original film trilogy.