From TheBestLinks.com
- Alternate meaning: Strategic Defense Initiative
Star Wars is the name of a series of science fantasy movies, a literary franchise, and a series of video games based on the ideas of filmmaker and writer George Lucas, which consist of numerous prequels, sequels, and literary adaptations. The movies revolve around the transition between the Galactic Republic and the Galactic Empire, as well as the Galactic Civil War which erupts between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire in an epic struggle between good and evil. The story is set "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." The phrase appears at the opening of each Star Wars novel, motion picture, and video game.
The original Star Wars movie was first released in 1977.
Overview
The Star Wars story has been presented in a series of American movies, which have spawned dozens of books. The Star Wars mythos is also the basis of many toys and games. Though the films and books are set in outer space and employ common science fiction motifs, the plots are humanistic in nature. Star Wars is an outstanding example of the space opera sub-genre of science fiction.
In comparison, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek also has enjoyed long-lasting popularity in American popular culture. However, whereas Star Trek takes a rational and progressive approach to storytelling, Star Wars has a strong 'mythic' quality to it. It has been said by some college literature professors that the Star Wars saga, with its struggle between good and evil, democracy and empire, can be considered closest to forming the United States' national epic.
The strong human appeal of the Star Wars story probably accounts for its enduring popularity; it has also been postulated that this popularity is based on nostalgia.
Many Star Wars fans first saw the films as children, and their (for the time) revolutionary special effects and simple, Manichean story made a profound impact.
The Star Wars films show considerable similarity to Asian Wuxia "Kung Fu" films, as well as Roman mythology. Lucas has stated that his intention was to create in Star Wars a modern mythology, based on the studies of his friend and mentor Joseph Campbell. He has also called the first movie's similarity to the film The Hidden Fortress (Akira Kurosawa) an "homage."
A notable feature of the Star Wars films is that they portray a world full of grime and technology that looks like it has been used for years, not the sleek, futuristic world typical of earlier science fiction films. In one of his many interviews on the making of Star Wars, Lucas told of rubbing the new props with dirt to make them look weatherworn. It is tempting to speculate that this break from traditional science fiction film influenced the cyberpunk genre that emerged around 1984.
The Star Wars franchise goes beyond the five already released films.
Officially-licensed Star Wars novels have been published since the original movie was released in 1977. Although these novels have been licensed by Lucas (meaning he shares in the royalties), he has retained ultimate creative control over the Star Wars universe for himself. Thus, the novels are not necessarily an official part of the Star Wars universe, although considerable ongoing effort is spent on the part of LucasFilm Licensing to ensure continuity between different authors' works. Occasionally, some elements from these novels have been adopted into the regular Star Wars canon. Books, games, stories, etc that are not directly derived from the 5 (soon to be 6) movies of Star Wars are known as the Extended or Expanded Universe, EU for short.
The original Star Wars (A New Hope) has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
In 1978 Lucas sued the creators of Battlestar Galactica for its alleged similarity to Star Wars.
The setting of Star Wars
As stated above, the line "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." appears at the beginning of every Star Wars film, book etc. and is the only way the Star Wars galaxy has been defined in relation to the real world. It is alluding to the classic fairy tale line "A long time ago, in a faraway land," and variations thereof.
The question is how far away is "far, far away" and how long ago is "a long time ago." Is "a long time ago" last week or ten thousand years ago? A hundred million years ago? Ten billion years ago? Considering the scope of Star Wars history, it seems the story is probably set at least a few hundred years ago, but it could be as many as thirteen billion years, assuming it is set in our universe.
How far away is "far, far away?" Is the Star Wars galaxy, perhaps, in a parallel universe? This would explain how the laws of physics can be defied and how the Force can exist, and the existence of Yuuzhan Vong suggests the galaxy has to be far enough away from the Milky Way that Yuuzhan Vong haven't discovered it in the "a long time" since the events of Star Wars.
For more information follow this (http://www.starwars.com/community/askjc/steve/askjc20000515.html) link.
Themes of Star Wars
Star Wars stresses the self-destructive nature of anger and hate, summed up in Yoda's words ("Fear is the path to the dark side: fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering") as well as placing one's feelings for certain people aside. For example, Luke Skywalker was told to remain on Dagobah to complete his training rather than rescue his friends from Cloud City, being told it would "destroy all for which they have fought and suffered."
On the political level, Star Wars advocates democracy over dictatorship, though it offers no alternative for the corrupt Republic's government. It largely remains neutral with relation to real political issues.
In the Expanded Universe, the Empire suppresses alien species, due to Palpatine being xenophobic, but the idea of this can only be seen subtly in films or, arguably, not at all. The idea of the Empire enslaving aliens is an analogy to racism. Also in this Expanded Universe, the Empire suppresses women, but this cannot be seen in the films at all. To its credit, the Empire does allow Princess Leia to be a senator, whereas the United States didn't even allow women to vote before 1919.
The main story arc in the films involves the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker, mirrored by political events occuring on a galactic scale. As Anakin falls to the dark side, the Republic falls to despotism; when Anakin returns, the evil Empire—which supplanted the Republic—is overthrown by the Rebel Alliance.
Star Wars movies
Listed in order of story time:
- Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (19 May 1999)
- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (16 May 2002)
- Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (scheduled release 19 May 2005)
- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (25 May 1977) original title was Star Wars; the first Star Wars movie to be released
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (21 May 1980)
- Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (25 May 1983)
The recurring leitmotif of the Star Wars Imperial March is one of the best known movie musical themes. Another well-known piece of music created for Star Wars is Duel of the Fates.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was filmed at Leavesden Film Studios in England.
A very poor quality remake of Star Wars (Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam, The Man Who Saves the World) was done in Turkey in 1982 [1] (http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=22122).
Re-releases
George Lucas has tinkered repeatedly with the original trilogy. In a September 2004 interview with CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/09/20/film.qa.george.lucas.ap/), he talked about his reasons for the changes:
- To me, the special edition ones are the films I wanted to make. Anybody that makes films knows the film is never finished. It's abandoned or it's ripped out of your hands, and it's thrown into the marketplace, never finished. ... Most artists, most painters, even composers would want to come back and redo their work now. They've got a new perspective on it, they've got more resources, they have better technology, and they can fix or finish the things that were never done. ...
- I wanted to actually finish the film the way it was meant to be when I was originally doing it. At the beginning, people went, "Don't you like it?" I said, "Well, the film only came out to be 25 or 30 percent of what I wanted it to be." ... If you read any interviews for about an eight- or nine-year period there, it was all about how disappointed I was and how unhappy I was and what a dismal experience it was. You know, it's too bad you need to get kind of half a job done and never get to finish it. So this was my chance to finish it.
Episodes IV - VI were remastered and re-released theatrically and on VHS during the late 1990s, and again on DVD in September 2004. The films underwent extensive clean-up and restoration work; Lucas also made a number of changes.
Star Wars related movies
Many made-for-TV films have been made about Star Wars. The first was the universally despised Holiday Special, which became famous later on as the first appearance of bounty hunter Boba Fett. An originally minor detail, the wookiee food of wookiee-ookiees, eventually became a cult symbol in the Star Wars fan universe, spawning plays on its name such as wookiee-cookies (a Star-Wars themed dessert) and the term Wookiee-Hooky (the act of skipping school to see a Star Wars film, particularly if it has just been released).
After Return of the Jedi, two films, about a family marooned on the forest moon of Endor, were made.
Star Wars related animated TV shows
Three cartoon series have been created based on Star Wars. The first two began in 1985 and Clone Wars began in 2003. Ewoks featured the adventures of the Ewoks prior to Return of the Jedi. Droids featured the adventures of C-3PO and R2-D2 between Episode III and Episode IV. Clone Wars features the adventures of the Jedi as the fight against the Confederacy of Independent Systems in the Clone Wars, set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
Star Wars books
Star Wars-based fiction predates the release of the first movie, with the novelization of "A New Hope" (by Alan Dean Foster but credited to George Lucas) released some months before the film itself. In 1978, Foster wrote the first original Star Wars novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, inaugurating a very successful literary spin-off franchise.
The six Star Wars movies offer the basis for which dozens of books have been written. Many of the books have been officially authorized by LucasFilm, and are often published by Bantam Books (with a few early titles published by Ballantine). The stories told by these books extend from a time long before The Phantom Menace, to a time long after Return of the Jedi. Books authorized by Lucas are written by fans of the films, and are part of a collection known as Expanded Universe. The first books considered to be part of the Expanded Universe began to appear in the mid-1990s.
The Expanded Universe has been making its way through a revolution as of late in the New Jedi Order (NJO) series, which recently was wrapped up in The Unifying Force. The NJO has told the story of the galaxy's horrific invasion by the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong, and has seen the passing of many heroic characters.
Many fans of the original Star Wars movies reject the literary works of the Expanded Universe, and insist only the films or statements George Lucas has made interpreting his own works, can be accepted as canonical. Likewise, there is also debate as to whether the half-dozen original novels published in the 1970s and early 80s, including Splinter of the Mind's Eye and two trilogies featuring Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, should be considered part of the Expanded Universe.
Other books include such titles as The Wildlife of Star Wars: A Field Guide, which detail things about the Star Wars universe, and the films, in a "non-fiction" style.
Star Wars comic books and strips
Marvel Comics published adaptations of the original trilogy as well as a Star Wars comic book series which lasted from 1977 to 1986, a total of 107 issues. A wide variety of creators worked on this series, including Archie Goodwin, Howard Chaykin, Al Williamson, Carmine Infantino, Walt Simonson, Michael Golden, Chris Claremont, Whilce Poratio, Jo Duffy, and Ron Frenz. In the 1980s as part of their Star Comics line oriented towards young children, Marvel also published the short lived series Ewoks and Droids, based on the Saturday morning cartoons.
Star Wars was also a daily newspaper comic strip from 1979 to 1984, for the bulk of its run written by Archie Goodwin and drawn by Al Williamson.
Beginning in the 1990s, Dark Horse Comics has published a large number of original adventures set in the Star Wars universe. As of 2004, these mainly include Star Wars Republic, Star Wars Empire, Star Wars Tales and Star Wars Jedi. They have also published collections of the Marvel series in seven volumes and the comic strip as Classic Star Wars.
See also: Star Wars Comic Books
Star Wars characters
See also: List of Star Wars characters for a more extensive listing
Anakin Skywalker |
Boba Fett |
C-3PO |
Chewbacca |
Count Dooku |
Darth Maul |
Darth Sidious |
Darth Vader |
General Grievous |
Han Solo |
Jabba the Hutt |
Jango Fett |
Jar Jar Binks |
Lando Calrissian |
Luke Skywalker |
Obi-Wan Kenobi |
Padmé Amidala |
Palpatine |
Princess Leia |
Qui-Gon Jinn |
R2-D2 |
Yoda
See Also
Cast and Crew
Lists
See also
External links
References
de:Star Wars
eo:Star Wars
es:La Guerra de las Galaxias
fr:Star Wars
hu:Csillagok háborúja
it:Guerre Stellari (serie)
ja:スターウォーズ
nl:Star Wars
pl:Gwiezdne Wojny
sv:Star Wars
fi:Star Wars
zh:星際大戰
Related links
Top visited
0 of
0 links
[no links posted yet]
>> place link >>
Discussion
Last posted
0 of
0 messages
[no messages posted yet]
>> post message >>
Watch
You can
add this article to your own "watchlist" and receive e-mail notification about all changes in this page.
