Star Wars

Where it came from

Star Wars was created by American George Lucas, a film maker and former racing driver. After reading Joseph Campbell’s study of myths and folk tales, A Hero with a Thousand Faces, Lucas set out in 1973 to write a modern myth ‘in a galaxy far, far away’. His plots and names draw on ancient mythology, Roman history, the Second World War and Vietnam War, sci fi comics like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, John Ford’s westerns, Fritz Lang’s droid, and the films of Akira Kurosawa.

Despite the success of Lucas’s American Graffiti, Star Wars was initially rejected as ‘too strange’, but was eventually filmed in the UK and went on to make cinema history.

Where it went next

Star Wars redefined the blockbuster movie, winning 6 Academy Awards and becoming the highest grossing film of the time.

Later renamed Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, this became the first of an epic film series, with Lucas writing two sequels and three prequels between 1980 and 2005. His influential storytelling has inspired an ever-expanding ‘Extended Universe’ of books, films, radio and TV series, board and computer games and theme park rides. Lucas is also well known for his four Indiana Jones films and is building a Museum of Narrative Art in California.

Associated stories

The other two films within Lucas’s initial Star Wars trilogy are The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983).

Since Disney acquired the galaxy far, far away in 2012, Star Wars has expanded into an interlinked saga across films and television. The sequel trilogy—The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker—follows Rey, Finn, and Poe as they face the First Order and the legacy of the Skywalkers, while standalone films Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Solo: A Star Wars Story zoom in on a younger Han Solo. On the small screen, spin offs include The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, The Bad Batch, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: Resistance, Tales of the Jedi, and Tales of the Empire.