Everything about Star Wars totally explained
Star Wars is an
epic space opera franchise initially conceived by
George Lucas during the
1970s and significantly expanded since that time. The first film in the franchise was simply titled, but later had the subtitle
A New Hope added to distinguish it from its sequels and prequels.
Star Wars was released on
May 25,
1977 by
20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide
pop culture phenomenon, initially spawning two sequels. Twenty-two years after
Star Wars was released, Lucas began the release of a
second trilogy as a
prequel to the
original trilogy.
The franchise has spawned other media including
novels,
television series,
video games, and
comic books. These supplements to the film trilogies comprise the
Star Wars Expanded Universe, and have resulted in significant development of the series'
fictional universe. As of 2008, the overall
box office revenue generated by the six
Star Wars films has totalled approximately $4.3 billion, making it the third-
highest grossing film series.
Setting
The events depicted in
Star Wars media take place in a
fictional galaxy. Many of the species depicted are essentially physically identical to
humans. Many species of
alien creatures, many of them
humanoid, are also commonplace, as are
robotic
droids, generally built to serve their owners. Space travel is common, with many planets in the galaxy members of a
Galactic Republic, later reorganized as the
Galactic Empire.
One of the prominent elements of
Star Wars is the "
Force" — an
omnipresent form of energy which can be harnessed by those with that ability. It is described in the first produced film as, "an energy field created by all living things [that] surrounds us, penetrates us, [and] binds the galaxy together." The force allows users to perform a variety of
supernatural feats, such as
telekinesis,
clairvoyance,
precognition, and
mind control, and also can amplify certain physical traits, such as speed and reflexes; the abilities can vary from user to user and can be improved through training. While the Force can be used for good, it has a
dark side which, when pursued, imbues users with hatred, aggression, and malevolence. The six films feature the
Jedi Knights, who use the Force for good, and the
Sith Lords, who use the dark side for evil in an attempt to take over the galaxy.
Feature films
The
Star Wars franchise began as a film series. The initial trilogy comprised three films:, released on
May 25,
1977,, released on
May 21,
1980, and, released on
May 25,
1983. The
opening crawl of the sequels disclosed that they were numbered as "Episode V" and "Episode VI" respectively, though the films were generally advertised solely under their subtitles. Once
Star Wars became a success and sequels were realized, Lucas numbered the initial film as the fourth episode in his series, and gave it the subtitle
A New Hope when the film was re-released in 1981.
On
May 19,
1999, Lucas released the first of the long-awaited prequel trilogy, . This was followed on
May 16,
2002, and on
May 19,
2005. On
February 12 2008, the official Star Wars website announced that a will be released in theaters on
August 15 2008. The CGI animated film will be about the clone wars.
Plot overview
The prequel trilogy follows the upbringing of
Anakin Skywalker, a child of
parthenogenesis who is discovered by Jedi Knight
Qui-Gon Jinn. He is believed to be the "Chosen One" foretold by Jedi
prophecy to bring balance to the Force. The
Jedi Council, led by
Yoda and Mace Windu, sense that his future is clouded with fear, but reluctantly allow Jinn's apprentice
Obi-Wan Kenobi to train Skywalker after Jinn is killed. At the same time, the planet
Naboo is under attack, and its queen,
Padmé Amidala, seeks the assistance of the Jedi to repel the attack. Sith Lord Darth Sidious secretly planned the attack to give his alias, Naboo
Senator Palpatine, a pretense to overthrow the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Senate. The remainder of the prequel trilogy chronicles Skywalker's fall to the dark side, as Sidious attempts to create an army to defeat the Jedi and lure Skywalker to be his apprentice. Amidala and Skywalker fall in love and eventually she becomes pregnant with twins. Skywalker soon succumbs to his anger, culminating in a
lightsaber battle between him and Kenobi. Kenobi leaves Skywalker for dead, but Sidious arrives shortly after to save him and put him in to a suit of black armor that keeps him alive. Kenobi and Skywalker hire pilot
Han Solo and his co-pilot
Chewbacca to take them to the rebels. Kenobi begins to teach Skywalker about the Force, but allows himself to be killed in a showdown with Vader during the rescue of Princess Leia. His sacrifice allows the group to escape with the plans that allow the rebels to destroy the Death Star. The
Star Wars world, unlike science-fiction and fantasy films that featured sleek and futuristic settings, was portrayed as dirty and grimy. Lucas' vision of a "used universe" was further popularized in the science fiction-horror films
Alien, which was set on a dirty space freighter;
Mad Max 2, which is set in a post-apocalyptic desert; and
Blade Runner, which is set in a crumbling, dirty city of the future. Lucas made a conscious effort to parallel scenes and dialogue between films, and especially to parallel the journeys of Luke Skywalker with that of his father Anakin when making the prequels. Lucas hired
Ben Burtt to oversee the sound effects on
A New Hope.
Burtt's accomplishment was such that the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented him with a Special Achievement Award because it had no award at the time for the work he'd done. Lucasfilm developed the
THX sound reproduction standard for
Return of the Jedi. The
scores for the six Star Wars films were composed by
John Williams. Lucas' design for
Star Wars involved a grand musical sound, with
leitmotifs for different characters and important concepts. Williams'
Star Wars title theme has become one of the most famous and well-known musical compositions in modern music history.
Production history
Original trilogy
In
1971,
Universal Studios agreed to make
American Graffiti and
Star Wars in a two-picture contract, although
Star Wars was later rejected in its early concept stages.
American Graffiti was completed in 1973 and, a few months later, Lucas wrote a short summary called "The Journal of the Whills", which told the tale of the training of apprentice C.J. Thorpe as a "Jedi-Bendu" space commando by the legendary Mace Windy. Frustrated that his story was too difficult to understand, Lucas then wrote a 13-page treatment called
The Star Wars, which was a loose remake of
Akira Kurosawa's
The Hidden Fortress. By 1974, he'd expanded the treatment into a rough draft screenplay, adding elements such as the
Sith, the
Death Star, and a young boy as the protagonist named
Annikin Starkiller. For the second draft, Lucas made heavy simplifications, and also introduced the young hero on a farm as
Luke. Annikin became Luke's father, a wise
Jedi knight. The "
Force" was also introduced as a supernatural power. The next draft removed the father character and replaced him with a substitute named
Ben Kenobi, and in 1976 a fourth draft had been prepared for principal photography. The film was titled "Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars." During production, Lucas changed Luke's name to Skywalker and altered the title to simply "The Star Wars" and finally "Star Wars".
At that point, Lucas wasn't expecting the film to become part of a series. The fourth draft of the script underwent subtle changes that made it more satisfying as a self-contained film, ending with the destruction of the
Empire itself by way of destroying the Death Star. However, Lucas
had previously conceived of the film as the first in a series of adventures. Later, he realised the film wouldn't in fact be the first in the sequence, but a film in the second trilogy in the saga. This is stated explicitly in George Lucas' preface to the 1994 reissue of
Splinter of the Mind's Eye:
It wasn't long after I began writing Star Wars that I realized the story was more than a single film could hold. As the saga of the Skywalkers and Jedi Knights unfolded, I began to see it as a tale that could take at last nine films to tell- three trilogies- and I realized, in making my way through the back story and after story, that I was really setting out to write the middle story.
The second draft contained a teaser for a never-made sequel about "The Princess of Ondos", and by the time of the third draft some months later Lucas had negotiated a contract that gave him rights to make two sequels. Not long after, Lucas met with author
Alan Dean Foster, and hired him to write these two sequels as novels. The intention was that if
Star Wars were successful, Lucas could adapt the novels into screenplays. He had also by that point developed a fairly elaborate backstory to aid his writing process.
When
Star Wars proved successful, Lucas decided to use the film as the basis for an elaborate
serial, although at one point he considered walking away from the series altogether. However, Lucas wanted to create an independent filmmaking center — what would become
Skywalker Ranch — and saw an opportunity to use the series as a financing agent. Alan Dean Foster had already begun writing the first sequel novel, but Lucas decided to abandon his plan to adapt Foster's work; the book was released as
Splinter of the Mind's Eye the next year. At first Lucas envisioned a series of films with no set number of entries, like the
James Bond series. In an interview with
Rolling Stone in August 1977, he said that he wanted his friends to each take a turn at directing the films and giving unique interpretations on the series. He also said that the backstory where Darth Vader turns to the dark side, kills Luke's father and fights
Ben Kenobi on a volcano as the
Galactic Republic falls would make an excellent sequel.
Later that year, Lucas hired science fiction author
Leigh Brackett to write
Star Wars II with him. They held story conferences and by late November 1977, Lucas had produced a handwritten treatment called
The Empire Strikes Back. The treatment is very similar to the final film except that Darth Vader doesn't reveal he's Luke's father. In the first draft that Brackett would write from this, Luke's father appears as a ghost to instruct Luke.
Brackett finished her first draft in early 1978; Lucas has said he was disappointed with it, but before he could discuss it with her, she died from cancer. With no writer available, Lucas had to write his next draft himself. It was this draft in which Lucas first made use of the "Episode" numbering for the films;
Empire Strikes Back was listed as
Episode II. As Michael Kaminski argues in
The Secret History of Star Wars, the disappointment with the first draft probably made Lucas consider different directions in which to take the story. He made use of a new plot twist: Darth Vader claims to be Luke's father. According to Lucas, he found this draft enjoyable to write, as opposed to the year-long struggles writing the first film, and quickly wrote two more drafts, both in April 1978. He also took the script to a darker extreme by having
Han Solo become imprisoned in
carbonite and left in
limbo.
This new story point of Darth Vader being Luke's father had drastic effects on the series. Michael Kaminski argues in his book that it's unlikely that the plot point had ever seriously been considered or even conceived of before 1978, and that the first film was clearly operating under an alternate storyline where Vader was separate from Luke's father; there isn't a single reference to this plot point before 1978. After writing the second and third drafts of
Empire Strikes Back in which the point was introduced, Lucas reviewed the new backstory he'd created: Anakin Skywalker was Ben Kenobi's brilliant student; he'd a child called Luke but was swayed to the dark side by Emperor
Palpatine (who became a Sith and not simply a politician). Anakin battled Ben Kenobi on the site of a volcano and was wounded, but then resurrected as Darth Vader. Meanwhile Kenobi hid Luke on
Tatooine while the Republic became the Empire and Vader hunted down the
Jedi knights.
With this new backstory in place, Lucas decided that the series would be a trilogy, changing
Empire Strikes Back from
Episode II to
Episode V in the next draft.
Lawrence Kasdan, who had just completed writing
Raiders of the Lost Ark, was then hired to write the next drafts, and was given additional input from director
Irvin Kershner. Kasdan, Kershner, and producer
Gary Kurtz saw the film as a more serious and adult film, which was helped by the new, darker storyline, and developed the series from the light adventure roots of the first film.
By the time he began writing
Episode VI in 1981 (then titled
Revenge of the Jedi), much had changed. Making
Empire Strikes Back was stressful and costly, and Lucas' personal life was disintegrating. Burnt out, and not wanting to make any more
Star Wars films, he vowed that he was done with the series in a May 1983 interview with
Time magazine. Lucas' 1981 rough drafts had Darth Vader competing with the Emperor for possession of Luke — and in the second script, the "revised rough draft", Vader became a sympathetic character. Lawrence Kasdan was hired to take over once again and, in these final drafts, Vader was explicitly redeemed and finally unmasked. This change in character would provide a springboard to the "Tragedy of Darth Vader" storyline that underlies the prequels.
Prequel trilogy
After losing much of his fortune in a divorce settlement in 1987, Lucas had no desire to return to
Star Wars, and had unofficially canceled his
Sequel Trilogy by the time of
Return of the Jedi. However the prequels, which were quite developed, continued to fascinate him. After
Star Wars became popular once again, in the wake of Dark Horse's comic line and
Timothy Zahn's
trilogy of novels, Lucas saw that there was still a large audience. His children had begun to grow older, and with the explosion of
CGI technology he was now considering returning to directing. By 1993 it was announced, in
Variety among other sources, that he'd be making the prequels. He began outlining the story, now indicating that Anakin Skywalker would be the protagonist rather than Ben Kenobi, and that the series would be a tragic one examining Anakin's transformation to evil. Lucas also began to change how the prequels would exist relative to the originals — at first they were supposed to be a "filling-in" of history, backstory, existing parallel or tangential to the originals, but now he saw that they could form the beginning of one long story that started with Anakin's childhood and ended with his death. This was the final step towards turning the franchise into a "Saga".
In 1994, Lucas began writing the first screenplay titled
Episode I: The Beginning. At first, he planned to write and then film the three prequels at once, but he later abandoned this plan. Lucas also initially planned to have others write and direct, but ultimately decided to do both himself for the first film. Following the release of that film, Lucas announced that he'd also also be directing the next two, and began working on
Episode II at that time. The first draft of
Episode II was completed just weeks before principal photography, and Lucas hired Jonathan Hales, a writer from the
Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, to polish it up. Unsure of a title, Lucas had jokingly called the film "Jar Jar's Great Adventure." In writing
The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas initially decided that
Lando Calrissian was a clone and came from a planet of clones which caused the "Clone Wars" mentioned by Kenobi in
A New Hope; he later came up with an alternate concept of an army of clone shocktroopers from a remote planet which attacked the Republic and were repelled by the Jedi knights. The basic elements of that backstory became the plot basis for
Episode II, with the new wrinkle added that the entire event was personal manipulation of Palpatine's.
Lucas began working on
Episode III even before
Attack of the Clones was released, offering concept artists that the film would open with a montage of seven Clone War battles. As he reviewed the storyline that summer, however, he says he radically re-organized the plot. Michael Kaminski, in
The Secret History of Star Wars, offers evidence that issues in Anakin's fall to the dark side prompted Lucas to make massive story changes, first revising the opening sequence to have Palpatine kidnapped and Dooku killed by Anakin as the first act in the latter's turn towards the dark side. Lucas' first draft was written in 2003, and is largely similar to the film, though much simplified. After principal photography was complete in 2003, Lucas made even more massive changes in Anakin's character, re-writing his entire turn to the dark side — he'd now turn primarily in a quest to save Padme from death, rather than the previous version in which that reason was one of several, including that he genuinely believed that the Jedi were evil and plotting to take over the Republic. This fundamental re-write was accomplished both through editing the principle footage, and new and revised scenes filmed during pick-ups in 2004.
Lucas often exaggerated the amount of material he wrote for the series; much of it stemmed from the post–1978 period when the series grew into a phenomenon. Michael Kaminski explained that these exaggerations were both a publicity and security measure. Kaminski rationalized that since the series' story radically changed throughout the years, it was always Lucas' intention to change the original story retroactively because audiences would only view the material from his perspective.
Future releases
At a
ShoWest convention in 2005, Lucas demonstrated new technology and stated that he planned to release the six films in a new
3-D film format, beginning with
A New Hope in 2007. However, by January 2007, Lucasfilm stated on StarWars.com that "there are no definitive plans or dates for releasing the Star Wars saga in 3-D." At Celebration Europe in July 2007, Rick McCallum confirmed that Lucasfilm is "planning to take all six films and turn them into 3-D," but they're "waiting for the companies out there that are developing this technology to bring it down to a cost level that makes it worthwhile for everybody".
Lucas has hinted in the past that he'll release future, more definitive editions of the six
Star Wars films on a next-generation home-video format. There have been discussions that he'll take this opportunity to make any final adjustments, changes, additions, and/or subtractions to his films for this final release. An altered clip from
The Phantom Menace included in a featurette on the DVD release of
Revenge of the Sith (in which a computer generated Yoda replaces the original puppet) appears to be a sign that the "archival" editions are indeed in the works. Lucasfilm Vice President of Marketing Jim Ward confirmed that Lucasfilm is likely to do even more work on the films (possibly digital contemporization of the original trilogy), stating "As the technology evolves and we get into a high-definition platform that's easily consumable by our customers, the situation is much better, but there will always be work to be done."
Box office performance
| Film |
Release date |
Box office revenue |
Box office ranking |
Reference |
| United States |
Foreign |
Worldwide |
All time domestic |
All time worldwide |
| |
May 25 1977 |
$460,935,665 |
$337,000,000 |
$797,900,000 |
#2 |
#19 |
|
| |
May 21 1980 |
$290,158,751 |
$243,700,000 |
$533,800,000 |
#30 |
#48 |
|
| |
May 25 1983 |
$309,125,409 |
$263,700,000 |
$572,700,000 |
#24 |
#42 |
|
| Original Star Wars trilogy |
|
$1,060,219,825 |
$844,400,000 |
$1,904,400,000 |
|
|
|
| |
May 19 1999 |
$431,065,444 |
$491,314,983 |
$922,379,000 |
#5 |
#7 |
|
| |
May 16 2002 |
$310,675,583 |
$337,600,000 |
$648,200,000 |
#22 |
#32 |
|
| |
May 19 2005 |
$380,262,555 |
$468,200,000 |
$848,462,555 |
#8 |
#16 |
|
| Prequel Star Wars trilogy |
|
$1,122,003,582 |
$1,298,114,983 |
$2,419,041,555 |
|
|
|
| Complete Star Wars film series |
|
$2,182,223,407 |
$2,141,514,983 |
$4,323,441,555 |
|
|
|
Expanded Universe
The term
Expanded Universe (
EU) is an umbrella term for officially licensed
Star Wars material outside of the six feature films. The material expands the stories told in the films, taking place anywhere from 25,000 years before
The Phantom Menace to 140 years after
Return of the Jedi. The first
Expanded Universe story appeared in
Marvel Comics'
Star Wars #7 in January 1978 (the first six issues of the series having been an adaptation of the film), followed quickly by
Alan Dean Foster's novel
Splinter of the Mind's Eye the following month.
Lucas retains
artistic control over the
Star Wars universe. For example, the death of central characters and similar changes in the status quo must first pass his screening before authors are given the go-ahead. In addition, Lucasfilm Licensing devotes efforts to ensure continuity between the works of various authors across companies. Elements of the Expanded Universe have been adopted by Lucas for use in the films, such as the name of capital planet
Coruscant, which first appeared in
Timothy Zahn's novel
Heir to the Empire before being used in
The Phantom Menace. A character introduced in
Dark Horse Comics'
Star Wars series, a blue Twi'lek Jedi Knight named
Aayla Secura, was liked enough by Lucas to be included as a character in
Attack of the Clones.
To date, six films and three animated series have been produced for television, with a live-action series and a
3D CGI animated series in pre-production. Lucas has played a large role in the production of the television projects, usually serving as storywriter or executive producer.
Star Wars has had
numerous radio adaptations. A radio adaptation of
A New Hope was first broadcast on
National Public Radio in 1981. The adaptation was written by science fiction author
Brian Daley and directed by
John Madden. It was followed by adaptations of
The Empire Strikes Back in 1983 and
Return of the Jedi in 1996. The adaptations included background material created by Lucas but not used in the films.
Mark Hamill,
Anthony Daniels, and
Billy Dee Williams reprised their roles as Luke Skywalker,
C-3PO, and
Lando Calrissian, respectively. The series also used John Williams' original score from the films and
Ben Burtt's original sound designs.
Literature
Star Wars-based fiction predates the release of the first film, with the 1976 novelization of
Star Wars (ghost-written by
Alan Dean Foster and credited to Lucas). Foster's 1978 novel,
Splinter of the Mind's Eye, was the first Expanded Universe work to be released. In addition to filling in the time between the films, this additional content greatly expanded the
Star Wars timeline before and after the film series.
Star Wars fiction flourished during the time of the original series (1977–1983) but slowed to a trickle afterwards. In 1991, however,
Timothy Zahn's
Thrawn Trilogy debuted, sparking a new interest in the
Star Wars universe. Since then, several hundred tie-in novels have been published by
Bantam and
Del Rey. A similar resurgence in the Expanded Universe occurred in 1996 with the Steve Perry novel
Shadows of the Empire, set between
Episodes V and
VI, and accompanying video game and comic book series.
LucasBooks radically changed the face of the
Star Wars universe with the introduction of the
New Jedi Order series, which takes place some 20 years after
Return of the Jedi and stars a host of new characters alongside series originals. However, several significant events which occur during the course of this series (such as the death of
Chewbacca) have sparked fan criticism. For younger audiences, three series have been introduced.
The Jedi Apprentice series follows the adventures of Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi before
Episode I.
The Jedi Quest series follows the adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker after
Episode I and before
Episode II. The third and currently on-going series is
The Last Of the Jedi series which follows the adventure of Obi-Wan Kenobi and the adventures of a surviving Jedi almost immediately after
Episode III.
Marvel Comics published
Star Wars comic book series and adaptations from 1977 to 1986. A wide variety of creators worked on this series, including
Roy Thomas,
Archie Goodwin,
Howard Chaykin,
Al Williamson,
Carmine Infantino,
Gene Day,
Walt Simonson,
Michael Golden,
Chris Claremont,
Whilce Portacio,
Jo Duffy, and
Ron Frenz. They also published a
Star Wars newspaper strip by
Russ Manning,
Steve Gerber, and
Archie Goodwin, the latter under a pseudonym. In the late 1980s, Marvel announced it would publish a new
Star Wars comic by
Tom Veitch and
Cam Kennedy. However, in December 1991,
Dark Horse Comics acquired the
Star Wars license and used it to launch a number of ambitious sequels to the original trilogy instead, including the very popular
Dark Empire stories. They have since gone on to publish a large number of original adventures set in the
Star Wars universe. There have also been parody comics, including
Tag and Bink.
Games
Since 1982, dozens of
video games have been published bearing the
Star Wars name, beginning with published for the
Atari 2600 by
Parker Brothers. Since then,
Star Wars has opened the way to a myriad of
space-flight simulation games,
first-person shooter games,
roleplaying games,
RTS games, and others. Two different official tabletop
role-playing games have been developed for the
Star Wars universe:
a version by West End Games in the 1980s and 1990s, and
one by Wizards of the Coast in the 2000s. The best-selling games so far are the and the series, with 12 million and 10 million units respectively.
The latest released game was . LucasArts is also currently developing a next-gen Star Wars game,, for the
PS3,
PS2,
Xbox 360 and
Wii. The game,of the same name of the multimedia project which it's a part of, takes place in the largely unexplored time period between and and casts players as
Darth Vader's "secret apprentice" hunting down the remaining Jedi. The game features a new game engine, and will be released in September 2008.
Star Wars trading cards have been published since the first 'blue' series, by
Topps, in 1977. Dozens of series have been produced, with
Topps being the licensed creator in the
United States. Some of the card series are of film stills, while others are original art. Many of the cards have become highly collectible with some very rare 'promos', such as the 1993 Galaxy Series II 'floating Yoda' P3 card often commanding US$1000 or more. While most 'base' or 'common card' sets are plentiful, many 'insert' or '
chase cards' are very rare.
Fan works
The
Star Wars saga has inspired many fans to create their own
apocrypha set in the
Star Wars galaxy. In recent years, this has ranged from writing fan-fiction to creating
fan films. In 2002, Lucasfilm sponsored the first annual
Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards, officially recognizing filmmakers and the genre. Because of concerns over potential copyright and trademark issues, however, the contest was initially open only to parodies, mockumentaries, and documentaries. Fan-fiction films set in the
Star Wars universe were originally ineligible, but in 2007 Lucasfilm changed the submission standards to allow in-universe fiction entries.
While many of the serious fan films have used elements from the licensed Expanded Universe to tell their story, they're not considered an official part of the
Star Wars canon. Lucasfilm, for the most part, has allowed but not endorsed the creation of these derivative fan-fiction works, so long as no such work attempts to make a profit from or tarnish the
Star Wars franchise in any way. Lucasfilm's open support and sanction of fan creations is a marked contrast to the attitudes of many other copyright holders. Some owners, such as
Paramount Pictures with the
Star Trek properties, have been known to actively discourage the creation of such works by fans.
Legacy
The
Star Wars saga has had a significant impact on modern global
pop culture. Both the films and characters have been parodied in numerous films and television. Notable film parodies of
Star Wars include
Hardware Wars, a 13 minute 1977 spoof which Lucas has called his favorite Star Wars parody, and
Spaceballs, a feature film by
Mel Brooks which featured effects done by Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic. Lucasfilm itself made two
mockumentaries,
Return of the Ewok (1982), about
Wicket W. Warrick's actor
Warwick Davis, and
R2-D2: Beneath the Dome (2002), which depicts R2-D2 "life story". There have also been many songs based on, and in, the Star Wars universe.
"Weird Al" Yankovic recorded two parodies: "
Yoda" and "
The Saga Begins".
When
Ronald Reagan proposed the
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a system of lasers and missiles meant to intercept incoming
ICBMs, the plan was quickly labeled "Star Wars," implying that it was science fiction and linking it to Ronald Reagan's acting career. According to
Frances Fitzgerald, Ronald Reagan was annoyed by this, but Assistant Secretary of Defense
Richard Perle told colleagues that he "thought the name wasn't so bad."; "'Why not?' he said. 'It's a good movie. Besides, the good guys won.'" This gained further resonance when Reagan described the
Soviet Union as an
Evil Empire, which was taken from the opening crawl to
A New Hope, while the term he used for the
Contras, "freedom fighters", was taken verbatim from the opening crawl to
The Empire Strikes Back.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Star Wars'.
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