A Myth celebrates its 30th birthday
This article was just published with ezine articles:
Happy Birthday Star Wars
A Myth celebrates its 30th birthday
It is almost impossible to grow up in the Western World and being unfamiliar with Star Wars. The Star Wars Saga has become one of our modern myths. Retold better: re - watched for generations. But who would have thought, that Star Wars is already 30 years old. On the other hand: who would really believe that it is only 30 years since we are told this legend.
It all started on May 25th 1977. The Original Star Wars premiere took place in “Manns Chinese Theater” in Los Angeles. Here for the first time ever the opening crawl “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” started the Star Wars movie. The original title was simple “Star Wars”. Later it was renamed “Star Wars, A New Hope”. Star Wars is a unique mixture of fairy tale, science fiction, and traditional hero saga. This mixture probably created the success of the Star Wars series. But this success of Star Wars was not guaranteed from the beginning. There were numerous problems during the production of the first episode of Star Wars. Few critics expected the film to achieve the measure of success it did. Many problems with special effects, editing, funding, and shooting caused the film to be pushed back from its expected release date of December 1976. The production company, not to mention many involved in the actual production, had little faith in the film. According to reports, it was a daily struggle merely to complete the film on time. This was one of the reasons that for the original release only 32 copies where produced. Despite these difficulties Star Wars became a surprise hit.
Four years before this premiere George Lucas had drafted a 14-page treatment. This draft was inspired and influenced by many myths and classic stories. At the beginning Lucas had planned to release fifteen films that would tell the Star Wars Saga. After the completion of “The return of the Jedi” he announced to put further filming of the saga on hold, until the technology of special effects had further developed. Only after he had seen the special effects in “Jurassic Park” in1994 Lucas made the decision to film the prequel trilogy (Episodes I to III).
The huge commercial success of Star Wars is not only originating from the screening of the films. Lucas certainly was one of the very first to realize the immense value of merchandising. Fox Studios the producing studio of Star Wars allowed Lucas 40% of the merchandising revenue in exchange for a reduced salary as the films director. Forbes Magazine estimates the complete merchandise earnings in relation to Star Wars at $20 billion.
Every stream of merchandising that can be imagined has been utilized for Star Wars. An extremely successful cooperation was established in 1999 with Danish toy manufacturer LEGO. Shortly after this cooperation between LEGO and Star Wars had been announced Lucas decided to produce the prequel trilogy of Star Wars (Episode I to III). Since then LEGO produced new sets and items in time of the start of each new film. Hundreds of LEGO sets connected with every part of the Star Wars trilogy have since been created. Almost every character from the original Star Wars Films can be played as a LEGO minifigure.
For younger customers there are two computer games: “LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game” and “Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy“. They are suitable for almost every game platform.
On occasion of Star Wars 30th birthday all merchandising partners will release new collectibles. LEGO will issue the most precious release of the “Ultimate Collector Series”: The new LEGO Star Wars Millennium Falcon is announced for October 1st 2007. The Milennium Falcon will be build out of 5195 LEGO pieces.
The Star Wars community celebrates the birthday with parties all over the world.
__________________________________________________________________
We hope you enjoy our LEGO STAR WARS FAN PAGE. Please leave us a feedback on our contact page if you miss something. With your help we want to make this Fan Page about LEGO STAR WARS a really helpful source for the LEGO STAR WARS Community. If you want to be informed about trends and future LEGO STAR WARS sets: please visit -or better: subscribe to our blog. You also have the chance now to get huge discounts
.
