After Lucas' second feature film, American Graffiti (1973), became a hit, Fox agreed to put up $9.5 million for the writer-director's next project. After four years in production, including location shots in Tunisia and Death Valley, California, Star Wars was ready for its release. Its relatively unknown cast featured Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, who teams with the roguish Han Solo (Harrison Ford) to rescue Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) from captivity on a space station commanded by the menacing Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones). The alien creatures, massive space station, elaborate space battles and other special effects came courtesy of Lucas' company, Industrial Light and Magic.
Though Fox released Star Wars in only 42 theaters,
it primed its target audience of science-fiction fans with a massive publicity
campaign. By the end of its first week, the film had made $3 million, and by
the end of the summer it would rake in some $100 million. Adjusting for
inflation, its box-office haul was second only to Gone with the Wind. In
addition to its commercial success, Star Wars was well received by
critics and was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It won
in six categories, mostly technical, and received an additional Oscar for
Special Achievement in Sound Editing.
The success of Star Wars was credited with
reviving the science-fiction film genre, which had previously been considered
highly unprofitable, and--along with Steven Spielberg's 1975 hit Jaws--with
introducing the concept of the summer blockbuster. It also sparked a Hollywood
trend away from smaller films and toward big-budget action movies targeted at
young audiences. Lucas would follow up on the success of his hit movie with two
sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983),
fueling a huge marketing juggernaut that included clothing, toys, videos and
other merchandise. The popularity of the Star Wars franchise lasted well
into the 1990s, and was encouraged by a theatrical re-release of the trilogy in
1997.
Starting in the late 1990s, Lucas released a new series
of Star Wars movies, set in a time period before the original trilogy
and featuring a new, younger cast (notably Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman and
Hayden Christensen) and an updated arsenal of special-effects technology.
Though the three newer films--Stars Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999),
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), and Star Wars:
Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)--were all huge-box office hits,
they failed to match the critical acclaim garnered by the original series.
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