Starting Star Wars With A New Hope Added: 11/22/2007

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Back in 1977 George Lucas was under pressure from his movie studio to get his new project, Star Wars, done. He wanted it to be the first in a set of six movies with the first three coming right away and then the next three coming some time later. This first movie was called A New Hope and it was actually chapter 4 of a 6 chapter story. A New Hope was the perfect chapter to start with because it introduces all of the main characters in a way that everyone would be able to remember them for the future installments even though Lucas new that the last three movies in this set would be prequels. It was all very complicated to the studio and all very clear to Lucas but A New Hope would need special effects that had never been done before and scenes with spaceship dogfights that had never been done before. Not only would he have to create an entirely new mythology, he would have to explain that mythology well enough to his cast so they could act it out, he would need to explain it well enough to his crew so that they would not give him problems working on the sets and the back lot stuff that every movie needed, and he would need to be able to explain it to the special effects company so they could create the shots he needed to finish this project. He failed in every category in the worst possible way and when A New Hope was finally done George Lucas was exhausted, hospitalized for heart trouble, and very prepared to be one of the most influential directors and producers ever in motion picture history.

George Lucas never had a problem with the vision he was trying to put on film and he never lost confidence in his ability to bring that story to life. He didn’t, however, have the same confidence in the people working for him and when it looked like A New Hope would not be released George Lucas took control of every aspect of the movie’s production from special effects to doing the editing himself. Lucas was smart enough to know that the studio executives had absolutely no confidence in his new movie so he took that opportunity to have them sign over all rights to any Star Wars movies, and their merchandising, to him for almost nothing. They thought A New Hope would flop and they didn’t want to be stuck with the rights to a flop along with any toys they may have made to promote the movie. But Lucas knew better and the movie was a huge success and he got to keep every penny the movie made after he paid back the expenses to the studio. He also created movie merchandising the likes of which no one had ever seen before and soon Star Wars toys were so hot that parents had to give their kids what amounted to IOUs from the toy company at Christmas in 1977 because they couldn’t make the toys fast enough and couldn’t ship until February of the following year. George Lucas was a genius and he used that genius to break away from the Hollywood machine and make his Star Wars movies the way he wanted to make them and only George Lucas benefited from them in every way.

Today A New Hope still stands as one of the greatest movies ever made and the mythology around it, and the characters in it, that all seemed so silly at first in 1977 have gone on to become a part of modern pop culture. So pervasive is the influence of Star Wars that Jedi Knight is an officially recognized religion in Australia. Take that Captain Kirk.

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