Star Wars Episode IV  A New Hope  originally released as Star Wars     is a      American epic space opera film     written and directed by George Lucas  It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga  two subsequent films complete the original trilogy  while a prequel trilogy completes the six film saga  It is the fourth film in terms of the series  internal chronology  Groundbreaking in its use of special effects  unconventional editing  and science fiction fantasy storytelling  the original Star Wars is one of the most successful and influential films of all time 
Set  a long time ago in a galaxy far  far away   the film follows a group of freedom fighters known as the Rebel Alliance as they plot to destroy the powerful Death Star space station  a devastating weapon created by the evil Galactic Empire  This conflict disrupts the isolated life of farmboy Luke Skywalker when he inadvertently acquires the droids carrying the stolen plans to the Death Star  After the Empire begins a cruel and destructive search for the droids  Skywalker decides to accompany Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi on a daring mission to rescue the owner of the droids  rebel leader Princess Leia Organa  and save the galaxy 
Produced with a budget of     million and released on May           the film earned      million in the United States and      million overseas  surpassing Jaws as the highest grossing film and remained that way until being surpassed by E T  the Extra Terrestrial in       Among the many awards the film received  it gained ten Academy Award nominations  winning six  the nominations included Best Supporting Actor for Alec Guinness and Best Picture  The film is widely ranked among the best films of all time  Lucas has re released the film on several occasions  sometimes with significant changes  the most notable versions are the      Special Edition  the      DVD release  and the      Blu ray release  which have modified computer generated effects  altered dialogue  and added scenes 

Plot

The galaxy is in a state of civil war  Spies for the Rebel Alliance have stolen plans to the Galactic Empire s Death Star  a weaponized space station capable of annihilating an entire planet  Rebel leader Princess Leia  Carrie Fisher  is in possession of the plans  but her ship is captured by Imperial forces under the command of the evil lord Darth Vader  David Prowse   Before she is captured  Leia hides the plans in the memory of a droid called R  D   Kenny Baker   along with a holographic recording  The small droid escapes to the surface of the desert planet Tatooine with fellow droid C  PO  Anthony Daniels  
The two droids are quickly captured by Jawa traders  who sell the pair to moisture farmer Owen Lars  Phil Brown  and his nephew  Luke Skywalker  Mark Hamill   While Luke is cleaning R  D   he accidentally triggers part of Leia s holographic message  in which she requests help from Obi Wan Kenobi  The only  Kenobi  Luke knows of is an old hermit named Ben Kenobi  Alec Guinness  who lives in the nearby hills  Owen  however  dismisses any connection  suggesting that Obi Wan is dead 
During dinner  R  D  escapes to seek Obi Wan  By the time Luke discovers his escape it is too late for pursuit  The next morning Luke and C  PO look for R  D   and just after finding him are attacked by Sand People  The assailants are scared off by Ben Kenobi  who reveals himself to be Obi Wan  He takes Luke and the droids to his home  where he tells Luke of his days as a Jedi Knight  The Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy before being wiped out by the Empire  Obi Wan tells of the Force  from which the Jedi draw their power  He goes on to tell Luke of his father  Anakin Skywalker  another Jedi who fought alongside Obi Wan  Contrary to his uncle s claims  Luke learns that his father was betrayed and killed by Darth Vader  Obi Wan s former pupil who turned to the  dark side of the Force   Luke is presented with his father s lightsaber  the Jedi s weapon of choice 
Obi Wan views Leia s complete message  Leia begs Obi Wan to take R  D  and the Death Star plans to her home planet of Alderaan  where her father will be able to retrieve and analyze them  Obi Wan asks Luke to learn the ways of the Force and join him on the trip  Luke initially refuses  offering Obi Wan transit to a local space port  When he discovers that his home has been destroyed and his aunt and uncle were killed by Imperial stormtroopers in search of the droids  Luke agrees to join Obi Wan and travel to Alderaan  The two hire smuggler Han Solo  Harrison Ford  and his Wookiee co pilot Chewbacca  Peter Mayhew  to transport them on their ship  the Millennium Falcon 
Meanwhile  Leia has been imprisoned on the Death Star and has resisted revealing the location of the secret Rebel base  Grand Moff Tarkin  Peter Cushing   the Death Star s commanding officer and Vader s superior  tries to coax information out of her by threatening to destroy Alderaan  Leia pretends to cooperate  but Tarkin destroys the planet anyway to demonstrate the power of the Empire s new weapon  When the Falcon arrives at Alderaan s coordinates  it finds only a cloud of rubble  They follow a TIE fighter  not realizing they are being drawn towards the Death Star  When they attempt to flee  the ship Falcon is captured by the station s tractor beam  and is brought into its hangar bay 
The group escapes from the Falcon and takes refuge in a command room while Obi Wan goes off to disable the tractor beam  While they are waiting  Luke discovers that Princess Leia is aboard and is scheduled to be executed  Sizing up the situation  Han  Luke  and Chewbacca stage a rescue and free the princess  After several harrowing escapes  they make their way back to the Falcon  where they witness a lightsaber duel between Obi Wan and Darth Vader  As the others race onto the ship to escape  Obi Wan allows himself to be struck down by Vader s lightsaber  Kenobi disappears while his empty cloak and deactivated lightsaber fall to the ground 
As the Falcon makes its escape  Vader and Tarkin reveal that a tracking device was placed aboard the ship in order to finally find the rebel base  After fighting their way through a token defence  the Falcon flies clear of the Death Star and reaches the Yavin IV Rebel base  The Death Star plans are analyzed by the Rebels  disclosing a vulnerable exhaust port leading to the main reactor  Luke joins the assault team but Han collects his reward for the rescue and leaves  despite Luke s request to stay and fight 
The Death Star arrives and is met by Rebel fighters  The Rebels suffer heavy losses after several failed attack runs  few pilots survive  Vader appears in a TIE Advanced X  and attacks the Rebel ships  Luke  one of the few Rebel pilots left  begins his attack as the Death Star moves into attack range  Vader closes on Luke  but as he is about to fire  Han arrives in the Falcon and attacks Vader s wingmen  Vader s ship is sent careening off into space  Guided by Obi Wan s voice telling him to use the Force  Luke switches off his targeting computer and fires a successful shot  destroying the Death Star seconds before it is about to fire on the Rebel base  Later  Princess Leia awards medals to Luke and Han for their heroism 

Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker  Luke is a young man who was raised by his aunt and uncle on the remote  desert world Tatooine  He dreams of something greater than his current position in life and eventually finds it 
Harrison Ford as Han Solo  Han is a sarcastic smuggler whom Obi Wan and Luke meet at the Mos Eisley Cantina and with whom they later travel  He owns a ship called the Millennium Falcon and is good friends with Chewbacca  the ship s co pilot 
Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia Organa  Leia is a member of the Imperial Senate and a leader of the Rebel Alliance  She plans to use the stolen Death Star plans to find the station s weakness 
Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin  Tarkin is the commander of the Death Star and a Regional Governor of the Galaxy  He leads the search for the Rebel Base  hoping to destroy it 
Alec Guinness as Obi Wan  Ben  Kenobi  Obi Wan is an aging man who served as a Jedi Knight and then Jedi Master during the Clone Wars  Early in the film  Kenobi introduces Luke to the Force 
Anthony Daniels as C  PO   PO is a protocol and interpreter droid who also falls into Luke s hands  He is rarely without his counterpart droid  R  D  
Kenny Baker as R  D   R  is an astromech droid who falls into the hands of Luke  He is carrying a secret message for Obi Wan from The Princess 
Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca  Chewie is the Wookiee co pilot of the Millennium Falcon and good friends with Han Solo 
David Prowse as Darth Vader  Vader is a Dark Lord of the Sith and a prominent figure of the Galactic Empire who hopes to destroy the Rebel Alliance  He is voiced by James Earl Jones 
Lucas shared a joint casting session with long time friend Brian De Palma  who was casting his own film Carrie  As a result  Carrie Fisher and Sissy Spacek auditioned for both films in each other s respective roles  Lucas favored casting young actors without long time experience  While reading for Luke Skywalker  then known as  Luke Starkiller    Hamill found the dialogue to be extremely odd because of its universe embedded concepts  He chose to simply read it sincerely and was selected instead of William Katt  who was subsequently cast in Carrie          
Lucas initially rejected the idea of using Harrison Ford  as he had previously worked with him on American Graffiti  and instead asked Ford to assist in the auditions by reading lines with the other actors and explaining the concepts and history behind the scenes that they were reading  Lucas was eventually won over by Ford s portrayal and cast him instead of Kurt Russell  Nick Nolte     Sylvester Stallone     Christopher Walken  Billy Dee Williams  who would play Lando Calrissian in the sequels   and Perry King  who wound up playing Solo in the radio plays       
Many young actresses in Hollywood auditioned for the role of Princess Leia  including Cindy Williams     Carrie Fisher was cast under the condition that she lose    pounds for the role  Aware that the studio disagreed with his refusal to cast big name star  Lucas signed veteran stage and screen actor Alec Guinness as Obi Wan Kenobi     Additional casting took place in London  where Mayhew was cast as Chewbacca after he stood up to greet Lucas  Lucas immediately turned to Gary Kurtz  and requested that Mayhew be cast      Daniels auditioned for and was cast as C  PO  he has said that he wanted the role after he saw a McQuarrie drawing of the character and was struck by the vulnerability in the robot s face        

Writing
Elements of the history of Star Wars are commonly disputed  as Lucas  statements about it have changed over time  a    George Lucas completed directing his first full length feature  THX       in       He has said that it was around this time that he first had the idea for Star Wars      though he has also claimed to have had the idea long before then      One of the most influential works on Lucas s early concepts was the Flash Gordon space adventure comics and serials      Lucas even made an attempt to purchase the rights to remake Flash Gordon at one point  but could not afford them      Friend and collaborator Walter Murch suggested in an interview that Star Wars was Lucas   transubstantiated version of Apocalypse Now   at one time  Lucas had planned to direct that film     
Following the completion of THX       Lucas was granted a two film development deal with United Artists at the Cannes Film Festival in May of that year for American Graffiti  and an idea for a space opera he called The Star Wars  He showed United Artists the script for American Graffiti  but they passed on the film  Universal Studios picked the film up      and Lucas spent the next two years completing it  Only then did he turn his attention to The Star Wars  He began writing the treatment in January       unsure what would come of Graffiti  and still very much in debt     
Lucas began his creation process by taking small notes  inventing odd names and assigning them possible characterizations  Lucas would discard many of these by the time the final script was written  but he included several names and places in the final script or its sequels  such as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo   He revived others decades later when he wrote his prequel trilogy  such as Mace Windy  renamed Windu   He used these initial names and ideas to compile a two page synopsis titled  The Journal of the Whills   which bore little resemblance to the final story      The Journal told the tale of the son of a famous pilot who is trained as a  padawaan  apprentice of a revered  Jedi Bendu       Frustrated after being told that his story was too difficult to understand      Lucas started again on a completely new outline  this time borrowing heavily from Akira Kurosawa s The Hidden Fortress      so much so that he at one time considered buying the rights to the film      He relied on a plot synopsis from Donald Richie s book The Films of Akira Kurosawa and wrote a    page draft that paralleled The Hidden Fortress  with names and settings reminiscent of the science fiction genre     
Both United Artists and Universal passed on their options for the film later that year  citing the risk involved in the project s potentially high budget  Lucas pursued Alan Ladd  Jr   the head of   th Century Fox  and in June      closed a deal to write and direct the film  Although Ladd did not grasp the technical side of the project  he believed that Lucas was talented  Lucas later stated that Ladd  invested in me  he did not invest in the movie      The deal afforded Lucas          to write and direct 
Later that year  Lucas began writing a full script of his synopsis  which he would complete in May       In this script he reintroduced the Jedi  which had been absent in his previous treatment  as well as their enemies  the Sith  He changed the protagonist  who had been a mature General in the treatment  to an adolescent boy  and he shifted the General into a supporting role as a member of a family of dwarfs         Lucas envisioned the Corellian smuggler  Han Solo  as a large  green skinned monster with gills  this would turn out to be Greedo  who Han would shoot in the Mos Eisley Cantina when we first meet his character   He based Chewbacca on his Alaskan Malamute dog  Indiana   whom he would later use as namesake for his next hero Indiana Jones   who often acted as the director s  co pilot  by sitting in the passenger seat of his car     
Many of the final elements in the film began to take shape  though the plot     was still far removed from the final script  It did  however  begin to diverge from The Hidden Fortress and take on the general story elements that would comprise the final film  Lucas began researching the science fiction genre  both watching films and reading books and comics      His first script incorporated ideas from many new sources  The script would also introduce the concept of a Jedi master father and his son  training to be a Jedi under the father s Jedi friend  which would ultimately form the basis for the film and even the trilogy  However  in this draft  the father is a hero who is still alive at the start of the film      The script was also the first time Darth Vader appeared in the story  though other than being a villain  he bore little resemblance to the final character 
Lucas grew distracted by other projects  but he would return to complete a second draft of The Star Wars by January       while still having some differences in the characters and relationships  For example  the protagonist Luke  Starkiller in this draft  had several brothers  as well as his father who appears in a minor role at the end of the film  The script became more of a fairy tale quest as opposed to the more grounded action adventure of the previous versions  This version ended with another text crawl which previewed the next story in the series  This draft was also the first to introduce the concept of a Jedi turning to the dark side  a historical Jedi that became the first to ever fall to the dark side  and then trained the Sith to use it  Lucas hired conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie to create paintings of certain scenes around this time  When Lucas delivered his screenplay to the studio  he included several of McQuarrie s paintings     
A third draft  dated August          was titled The Star Wars  From the Adventures of Luke Starkiller which now had most of the elements of the final plot  with only some differences in the characters and settings  Luke was again an only child  and his father was  for the first time  written as dead  This script would be re written for the fourth and final draft  dated January         as The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as taken from the Journal of the Whills  Saga I  Star Wars  Lucas worked with his friends Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck to revise the fourth draft into the final pre production script        th Century Fox approved a budget of             American Graffiti  having been released in      to positive reviews  allowed Lucas to renegotiate his deal with Alan Ladd  Jr  and request the sequel rights to the film  For Lucas  this deal protected Star Wars  unwritten segments and most of the merchandising profits         Lucas would continue to tweak the script during shooting  most notably adding the death of Kenobi after realizing he served no purpose in the ending of the film         
 edit Lucas s claims
Lucas has often alleged that the entire original trilogy was written as one film  that the Star Wars script was too long  so he split it into three films             However  none of Lucas s drafts had more pages or scenes than his final draft  Lucas s second draft is usually cited as the script he is referring to with these comments      Michael Kaminski argues in his work The Secret History of Star Wars that this draft is structurally very similar to the final film in plot arrangement  and that the only elements from it that were saved for the sequels were an asteroid field space chase  moved to The Empire Strikes Back  and a forest battle involving Wookiees  moved to Return of the Jedi  with Ewoks in place of Wookiees   and that none of the major plotlines of the sequels are present      Lucas himself has admitted this     
 edit Production
In       Lucas founded the visual effects company Industrial Light   Magic  ILM  after discovering that   th Century Fox s visual effects department had been disbanded  ILM began its work on Star Wars in a warehouse in Van Nuys  California  Most of the visual effects used motion control photography  which creates the illusion of size by employing small models and slowly moving cameras  Model spaceships were constructed on the basis of drawings by Joe Johnston  input from Lucas  and paintings by McQuarrie  Lucas opted to abandon the traditional sleekness of science fiction by creating a  used universe  in which all devices  ships  and buildings looked aged and dirty            

When filming began on March          in the Tunisian desert for the scenes on the planet Tatooine  the project faced several problems      Lucas fell behind schedule in the first week of shooting due to a rare Tunisian rainstorm  malfunctioning props  and electronic breakdowns          When actor Anthony Daniels wore the C  PO outfit for the first time  the left leg piece shattered down through the plastic covering his left foot  stabbing him  After completing filming in Tunisia  production moved into the more controlled environment of Elstree Studios  near London      However  significant problems  such as a crew that had little interest in the film  still arose         Most of the crew considered the project a  children s film   rarely took their work seriously  and often found it unintentionally humorous         Actor Kenny Baker later confessed that he thought the film would be a failure  Harrison Ford found the film  weird  in that there was a Princess with buns for hair and what he called a  giant in a monkey suit  named Chewbacca  Ford also found the dialogue difficult  saying  George  you can type this shit  but you can t say it       

Lucas clashed with cinematographer Gilbert Taylor  whom producer Gary Kurtz called  old school  and  crotchety   Moreover  with a background in independent filmmaking  Lucas was accustomed to creating most of the elements of the film himself  His camera suggestions were rejected by an offended Taylor  who felt that Lucas was over stepping his boundaries by giving specific instructions  Lucas eventually became frustrated that the costumes  sets and other elements were not living up to his original vision of Star Wars  He rarely spoke to the actors  who felt that he expected too much of them while providing little direction  His directions to the actors usually consisted of the words  faster  and  more intense     

Ladd offered Lucas some of the only support from the studio  he dealt with scrutiny from board members over the rising budget and complex screenplay drafts  After production fell two weeks behind schedule  Ladd told Lucas that he had to finish production within a week or he would be forced to shut down production  The crew split into three units  led by Lucas  Kurtz and production supervisor Robert Watts  Under the new system  the project met the studio s deadline        

During production  the cast attempted to make Lucas laugh or smile as he often appeared depressed  At one point  the project became so demanding that Lucas was diagnosed with hypertension and exhaustion and was warned to reduce his stress level         Post production was equally stressful due to increasing pressure from   th Century Fox  Moreover  Mark Hamill s car accident left his face visibly scarred  which suppressed re shoots     

Star Wars was originally slated for release in Christmas       however  delays pushed the film s release to summer       Already anxious about meeting his deadline  Lucas was shocked when editor John Jympson s first cut of the film was a  complete disaster   According to an article in Star Wars Insider     by David West Reynolds  this first edit of Star Wars contained about        different footage from the final version  This included scenes that have never been seen elsewhere along with alternate takes of existing scenes  After attempting to persuade Jympson to cut the film his way  Lucas replaced him with Paul Hirsch and Richard Chew  He also allowed his then wife Marcia Lucas to aid the editing process while she was cutting the film New York  New York with Lucas s friend Martin Scorsese  Richard Chew found the film had an unenergetic pace  it had been cut in a by the book manner  scenes were played out in master shots that flowed into close up coverage  He found that the pace was dictated by the actors instead of the cuts  Hirsch and Chew worked on two reels simultaneously  whoever finished first moved on to the next    

Meanwhile  Industrial Light   Magic was struggling to achieve unprecedented special effects  The company had spent half of its budget on four shots that Lucas deemed unacceptable      Moreover  theories surfaced that the workers at ILM lacked discipline  forcing Lucas to intervene frequently to ensure that they were on schedule  With hundreds of uncompleted shots remaining  ILM was forced to finish a year s work in six months  Lucas inspired ILM by editing together aerial dogfights from old war films  which enhanced the pacing of the scenes    
During the chaos of production and post production  the team made decisions about character voicing and sound effects  Sound designer Ben Burtt had created a library of sounds that Lucas referred to as an  organic soundtrack   Blaster sounds were a modified recording of a steel cable  under tension  being struck  For Chewbacca s growls  Burtt recorded and combined sounds made by dogs  bears  lions  tigers and walruses to create phrases and sentences  Lucas and Burtt created the robotic voice of R  D  by filtering their voices through an electronic synthesizer  Darth Vader s breathing was achieved by Burtt breathing through the mask of a scuba regulator implanted with a microphone      Lucas never intended to use the voice of David Prowse  who portrayed Darth Vader in costume  because of Prowse s English West Country accent  He originally wanted Orson Welles to speak for Darth Vader  However  he felt that Welles  voice would be too recognizable  so he cast the lesser known James Earl Jones     Nor did Lucas intend to use Anthony Daniels  voice for C  PO  Thirty well established voice actors read for the voice of the droid  According to Daniels  one of the major voice actors  believed by some sources to be Stan Freberg  recommended Daniels  voice for the role        
When Lucas screened an early cut of the film for his friends  among them directors Brian De Palma  John Milius and Steven Spielberg  their reactions were disappointing  Spielberg  who claimed to have been the only person in the audience to have enjoyed the film  believed that the lack of enthusiasm was due to the absence of finished special effects  Lucas later said that the group was honest and seemed bemused by the film  In contrast  Alan Ladd  Jr  and the rest of   th Century Fox loved the film  one of the executives  Gareth Wigan  told Lucas   This is the greatest film I ve ever seen   and cried during the screening  Lucas found the experience shocking and rewarding  having never gained any approval from studio executives before     The delays increased the budget from    million to     million     

According to Lucas  the film was inspired by numerous sources  such as Beowulf and King Arthur for the origins of myth and world religions     Lucas originally wanted to rely heavily on the     s Flash Gordon film serials  however  he resorted to Akira Kurosawa s film The Hidden Fortress and Joseph Campbell s The Hero with a Thousand Faces because of copyright issues with Flash Gordon      Star Wars features several parallels to Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon  such as the conflict between Rebels and Imperial Forces  the  wipes  between scenes  and the famous opening crawl that begins each film  A concept borrowed from Flash Gordon a fusion of futuristic technology and traditional magic was originally developed by one of the founders of science fiction  H  G  Wells  Wells believed the Industrial Revolution had quietly destroyed the idea that fairy tale magic might be real  Thus  he found that plausibility was required to allow myth to work properly  and substituted elements of the Industrial Era  time machines instead of magic carpets  Martians instead of dragons  and scientists instead of wizards  Wells called his new genre  scientific fantasia      
Star Wars was influenced by the      Kurosawa film The Hidden Fortress  for instance  the two bickering peasants evolved into C  PO and R  D   and a Japanese family crest seen in the film is similar to the Imperial Crest  Star Wars also borrows heavily from another Kurosawa film  Yojimbo  In both films  several men threaten the hero  bragging how wanted they are by authorities  The situation ends with an arm being cut off by a blade  Kuwabatake Sanjuro  portrayed by Toshiro Mifune  is offered  twenty five ryo now  twenty five when you complete the mission   whereas Han Solo is offered  Two thousand now  plus fifteen when we reach Alderaan   Lucas s affection for Kurosawa may have influenced his decision to visit Japan in the early     s  leading some to believe he borrowed the name  Jedi  from jidaigeki  which in English means  period dramas   and refers to films typically featuring samurai      
Tatooine is similar to Arrakis from Frank Herbert s book Dune  Arrakis is the only known source of a longevity drug called the Spice Melange  References to  spice   various illegal stimulant drugs  occur throughout the last three films of the Star Wars saga  In Episode IV Han Solo is a spice smuggler who has been through the spice mines of Kessel  In the conversation at Obi Wan Kenobi s home between Obi Wan and Luke  Luke expresses a belief that his father was a navigator on a spice freighter  Other similarities include those between Princess Leia and Princess Alia  and between Jedi mind tricks and  The Voice   a controlling ability used by Bene Gesserit  In passing  Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru are  Moisture Farmers   in Dune  Dew Collectors are used by Fremen to  provide a small but reliable source of water       Frank Herbert reported that   David Lynch   director of      film Dune  had trouble with the fact that Star Wars used up so much of Dune   The pair found  sixteen points of identity  and they calculated that   the odds against coincidence produced a number larger than the number of stars in the universe      
The Death Star assault scene was modeled after the film The Dam Busters         in which Royal Air Force Lancaster bombers fly along heavily defended reservoirs and aim  bouncing bombs  at their man made dams to cripple the heavy industry of the Ruhr  Some of the dialogue in The Dam Busters is repeated in the Star Wars climax  Gilbert Taylor also filmed the special effects sequences in The Dam Busters  In addition  the sequence was partially inspired by the climax of the film     Squadron        directed by Walter Grauman      in which RAF Mosquitos attack a German heavy water plant by flying down a narrow fjord to drop special bombs at a precise point while avoiding anti aircraft guns and German fighters  Clips from both films were included in Lucas s temporary dogfight footage version of the sequence     
The opening shot of Star Wars  in which a detailed spaceship fills the screen overhead  is a nod to the scene introducing the interplanetary spacecraft Discovery One in Stanley Kubrick s seminal      film       A Space Odyssey  The earlier big budget science fiction film influenced the look of Star Wars in many other ways  including the use of EVA pods and hexagonal corridors  The Death Star has a docking bay reminiscent of the one on the orbiting space station in       citation needed  The film also draws on The Wizard of Oz         similarities exist between Jawas and Munchkins  the main characters disguise themselves as enemy soldiers  and when Obi Wan dies  he leaves only his empty robe  similar to the melting of the Wicked Witch of the West  Also of note is that Luke lives on a farm with his uncle and aunt like Dorothy      Although golden and male  C  PO is inspired by the robot Maria from Fritz Lang s      film Metropolis  His whirring sounds were speculated to be inspired by the clanking noises of The Wizard of Oz character the Tin Woodsman and C  PO has an arc throughout the Star Wars saga that is similar to the arc of the Cowardly Lion     

On the recommendation of his friend Steven Spielberg  Lucas hired composer John Williams  who had worked with Spielberg on the film Jaws  for which he won an Academy Award  Lucas felt that the film would portray visually foreign worlds  but that the musical score would give the audience an emotional familiarity  In March       Williams conducted the London Symphony Orchestra to record the Star Wars soundtrack in twelve days    
Lucas wanted a grand musical sound for Star Wars  with leitmotifs to provide distinction  Therefore  he assembled his favorite orchestral pieces for the soundtrack  until John Williams convinced him that an original score would be unique and more unified  However  a few of Williams  pieces were influenced by the tracks given to him by Lucas  The  Main Title Theme  was inspired by the theme from the      film Kings Row  scored by Erich Wolfgang Korngold  and the track  Dune Sea of Tatooine  drew from the soundtrack from Bicycle Thieves  scored by Alessandro Cicognini  The American Film Institute s list of best scores lists the Star Wars soundtrack at number one     

Charles Lippincott was hired by Lucas s production company  Lucasfilm Ltd   as marketing director for Star Wars  As   th Century Fox gave little support for marketing beyond licensing T shirts and posters  Lippincott was forced to look elsewhere  He secured deals with Stan Lee  Roy Thomas and Marvel Comics for a comic book adaptation and with Del Rey Books for a novelization  A fan of science fiction  he used his contacts to promote the film at the San Diego Comic Con and elsewhere within fandom  Worried that Star Wars would be beaten out by other summer films  such as Smokey and the Bandit    th Century Fox moved the release date to the Wednesday before Memorial Day  May           However  fewer than forty theaters ordered the film to be shown  In response    th Century Fox demanded that theaters order Star Wars if they wanted an eagerly anticipated film based on a best selling novel titled The Other Side of Midnight    
Within three weeks of the film s release    th Century Fox s stock price doubled to a record high  Before         th Century Fox s greatest annual profits were              in       the company earned              Although the film s cultural neutrality helped it to gain international success  Ladd became anxious during the premiere in Japan  After the screening  the audience was silent  leading him to fear that the film would be unsuccessful  Ladd was later told that  in Japan  silence was the greatest honor to a film  When Star Wars made an unprecedented second opening at Mann s Chinese Theatre on   August      after Sorcerer failed  thousands of people attended a ceremony in which C  PO  R  D   and Darth Vader placed their footprints in the theater s forecourt         Some cinemas continuously screened the film for more than a year 
Little Star Wars merchandise was available for several months after the film s debut  only Kenner Toys had accepted Lippincott s licensing offers  Kenner responded to the sudden demand for toys by selling boxed vouchers in its  empty box  Christmas campaign  Television commercials told children and parents that vouchers within a  Star Wars Early Bird Certificate Package  could be redeemed for toys  between February   and June       
In       at the height of the film s popularity  Smith Hemion Productions approached Lucas with the idea of The Star Wars Holiday Special  The result is often considered a failure  Lucas himself disowned it      Lucas entered into a wager with longtime friend Spielberg during the production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind  Lucas was sure Close Encounters would outperform the yet to be released Star Wars at the box office and bet      of the proceeds of each film against each other  Lucas lost the bet and Spielberg still receives proceeds from the first of the Star Wars movies     
The film was originally released as Star Wars  without Episode IV or the subtitle A New Hope  The      sequel  Star Wars Episode V  The Empire Strikes Back  featured an episode number and subtitle in the opening crawl  When the original film was re released in       Episode IV  A New Hope was added above the original opening crawl  Although Lucas claims that only six films were ever planned  representatives of Lucasfilm discussed plans for nine or twelve possible films in early interviews      The film was re released theatrically in                         and with additional scenes and enhanced special effects in      

The film was released on VHS  Betamax and Laserdisc during the     s and    s by CBS Fox Video         

After ILM used computer generated effects for Steven Spielberg s Jurassic Park  Lucas concluded that digital technology had caught up to his original vision for Star Wars     For the film s   th anniversary in       A New Hope was digitally remastered and re released to movie theaters  along with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi  under the campaign title The Star Wars Trilogy  Special Edition  The Special Edition versions contained visual shots and scenes that were unachievable in the original release due to financial  technological  and time restraints  one such scene involved a meeting between Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt     The process of creating the new visual effects for A New Hope was featured in the Academy Award nominated IMAX documentary film  Special Effects  Anything Can Happen  directed by veteran Star Wars sound designer  Ben Burtt  Although most changes were minor or cosmetic in nature  some fans believe that Lucas degraded the movie with the additions      For instance  a particularly controversial change in which a bounty hunter named Greedo shoots first when confronting Han Solo has inspired T shirts brandishing the phrase  Han Shot First      
Although the Special Edition s changes were artistic  A New Hope required extensive restoration before Lucas could even attempt his modifications  It had been discovered that in addition to the negative motion picture stocks commonly used on feature films  Lucas had also used internegative film  a reversal stock which deteriorated faster than negative stocks did  This meant that the entire printing negative had to be disassembled  and the CRI  color reversal internegative  portions cleaned separately from the negative portions  Once the cleaning was complete  the film was scanned into the computer for restoration  In many cases  entire scenes had to be reconstructed from their individual elements  Fortunately  digital compositing technology allowed them to correct for problems such as alignment of mattes   blue spill   and so forth     
The film was then color corrected and digitally printed onto a new negative  from which prints would be struck 

A New Hope was released on DVD on September           in a box set with The Empire Strikes Back  Return of the Jedi  and a bonus disc of supplementary material  The movies were digitally restored and remastered  and more changes were made by George Lucas 
The DVD features a commentary track from George Lucas  Ben Burtt  Dennis Muren  and Carrie Fisher  The bonus disc contains the documentary Empire of Dreams  The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy  three featurettes  teaser and theatrical trailers  TV spots  still galleries  an exclusive preview of Star Wars Episode III  Revenge of the Sith  a playable Xbox demo of the LucasArts game Star Wars  Battlefront  and a  Making Of  documentary on the Episode III video game  The set was reissued in December      as part of a three disc  limited edition  boxed set without the bonus disc 
The trilogy was re released on separate two disc Limited Edition DVD sets from September    to December           and again in a box set on November              the original versions of the films were added as bonus material  Controversy surrounded the release because the unaltered versions were from the      non anamorphic Laserdisc masters  and were not retransferred with modern video standards     

On August           George Lucas announced that all six Star Wars films would be released on Blu ray Disc in Fall           On January          the release was announced for September          in three different editions      Star Wars  The Complete Saga includes nine discs and over    hours of special features  including deleted and alternate scenes from the films     

On September           it was announced that all six films in the series will be converted to stereo  D  The films will be re released in internal chronological order beginning with The Phantom Menace in early       A New Hope is scheduled to be re released in  D in          

Star Wars debuted on Wednesday  May           in    theaters  and eight more on Thursday and Friday  It immediately broke box office records  effectively becoming one of the first blockbuster films  and Fox accelerated plans to broaden its release      Lucas spent most of the day in a sound studio in Los Angeles  When he went out for lunch with his then wife Marcia  they encountered a long queue of people along the sidewalks leading to Mann s Chinese Theatre  waiting to see Star Wars      Even technical crew members  such as model makers  were asked for autographs  and cast members became instant household names    
Star Wars remains one of the most financially successful films of all time  The film s original total U S  and Canada gross came to               and it earned            during its first weekend in wide release  The film became the highest grossing film of      and the highest grossing film of all time until E T  the Extra Terrestrial broke that record in       With subsequent re releases  Star Wars reclaimed the title  but lost it again to James Cameron s      blockbuster Titanic  The film earned              worldwide     and adjusted for inflation it is the second highest grossing movie of all time in the United States  behind Gone with the Wind            

The film received a largely positive critical reception  In his      review  Roger Ebert called the film  an out of body experience   compared its special effects to those of       A Space Odyssey  and opined that the true strength of the film was its  pure narrative       Vincent Canby called the film  the movie that s going to entertain a lot of contemporary folk who have a soft spot for the virtually ritualized manners of comic book adventure      
However  there were a few negative responses  Pauline Kael of The New Yorker criticized the film  stating that  there s no breather in the picture  no lyricism   and that it had no  emotional grip       Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader stated   None of these characters has any depth  and they re all treated like the fanciful props and settings       Peter Keough of the Boston Phoenix said  Star Wars is a junkyard of cinematic gimcracks not unlike the Jawas  heap of purloined  discarded  barely functioning droids       According to review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes      of    reviews assessed are favorable  with an average rating of         stating in summary   A legendarily expansive and ambitious start to the sci fi saga  George Lucas opened our eyes to the possiblites of blockbuster filmmaking and things have never been the same      

 th   Gene Siskel  Chicago Tribune    
  th   Roger Ebert  Chicago Sun Times    
Prolific film producer Roger Corman considers Star Wars to be one of the greatest films of all time     

Star Wars won six Academy Awards  including Best Art Direction  which went to John Barry  Norman Reynolds  Leslie Dilley and Roger Christian  Best Costume Design was awarded to John Mollo  Best Film Editing went to Paul Hirsch  Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew  John Stears  John Dykstra  Richard Edlund  Grant McCune and Robert Blalack all received awards for Best Visual Effects  John Williams was awarded his third Oscar for Best Original Score  the Best Sound went to Don MacDougall  Ray West  Bob Minkler and Derek Ball  and a Special Achievement for Sound Effects Editing went to Ben Burtt      Additional nominations included Alec Guinness for Best Actor in a Supporting Role  George Lucas for Best Original Screenplay  Best Director  and Best Picture  which instead went to Annie Hall     
At the Golden Globe Awards  the film was nominated for Best Motion Picture   Drama  Best Director  Best Supporting Actor  Alec Guinness   and it won the award for Best Score      It received six BAFTA nominations  Best Film  Best Editing  Best Costume Design  Best Production Art Design  Best Sound  and Best Score  the film won in the latter two categories      John Williams  soundtrack album won the Grammy Award for Best Album of Original Score for a Motion Picture or Television Program      and the film was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation      In       the MTV Movie Awards awarded Chewbacca the lifetime achievement award for his work in the Star Wars trilogy     

Critic Roger Ebert wrote   Like The Birth of a Nation and Citizen Kane  Star Wars was a technical watershed that influenced many of the movies that came after       It began a new generation of special effects and high energy motion pictures  The film was one of the first films to link genres such as space opera and soap opera together to invent a new  high concept genre for filmmakers to build upon          Finally  along with Steven Spielberg s Jaws it shifted the film industry s focus away from personal filmmaking of the     s and towards fast paced big budget blockbusters for younger audiences            
After seeing Star Wars  director James Cameron quit his job as a truck driver to enter the film industry  Other filmmakers who have said to have been influenced by Star Wars include Peter Jackson  Dean Devlin  Roland Emmerich  Christopher Nolan  John Lasseter  David Fincher  Kevin Smith  John Singleton  and Ridley Scott      Scott was influenced by the  used future   where vehicles and culture are obviously dated  and extended the concept for his science fiction horror film Alien and science fiction noir film Blade Runner  which also starred Harrison Ford   Jackson used the concept for his production of The Lord of the Rings trilogy to add a sense of realism and believability      Nolan cited Star Wars as an influence when making the blockbuster Inception     
Some critics have blamed Star Wars and also Jaws for ruining Hollywood by shifting its focus from sophisticated and relevant films such as The Godfather  Taxi Driver  and Annie Hall to films about spectacle and juvenile fantasy      Peter Biskind complained for the same reason   When all was said and done  Lucas and Spielberg returned the     s audience  grown sophisticated on a diet of European and New Hollywood films  to the simplicities of the pre     s Golden Age of movies  They marched backward through the looking glass          
In an opposing view  Tom Shone wrote that through Star Wars and Jaws  Lucas and Spielberg  didn t betray cinema at all  they plugged it back into the grid  returning the medium to its roots as a carnival sideshow  a magic act  one big special effect   which was  a kind of rebirth      
Star Wars has been the subject of many parodies  including those in Robot Chicken  South Park  Family Guy in the episode  Blue Harvest   the short film Hardware Wars and Mel Brooks  full length parody  Spaceballs 

In       the U S  National Film Registry of the Library of Congress selected the film as a  culturally  historically  or aesthetically important  film      In       Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back were voted as the greatest films ever made on Channel   s     Greatest Films poll      In       Lucas s original screenplay was selected by the Writers Guild of America as the   th greatest of all time     

AFI s     Years       Movies                 
AFI s     Years       Thrills                 
AFI s     Years       Heroes and Villains        
Han Solo       Hero    
Obi Wan Kenobi       Hero    
Princess Leia   Nominated Hero    
Luke Skywalker   Nominated Hero    
AFI s     Years       Movie Quotes        
 May the Force be with you           
 Help me  Obi Wan Kenobi  You re my only hope     Nominated    
AFI s     Years of Film Scores                
AFI s     Years       Cheers                 
AFI s     Years       Movies    th Anniversary Edition                  
AFI s    Top                Sci Fi Film    
In       ABC aired a primetime special  Best in Film  The Greatest Movies of Our Time  that counted down the best movies chosen by fans based on results of a poll conducted by ABC and People magazine  Star Wars was selected as the    Best Sci Fi Film 

The novelization of the film was published in December       six months before the film was released  The credited author was George Lucas  but the book was revealed to have been ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster  who later wrote the first Expanded Universe novel  Splinter of the Mind s Eye  The book was first published as Star Wars  From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker  later editions were titled simply Star Wars        and  later  Star Wars  A New Hope         to reflect the retitling of the film  Certain scenes deleted from the film  and later restored or archived in DVD bonus features  were always present in the novel  since it had been based on the screenplay   such as Luke at Tosche Station with Biggs and the encounter between Han and Jabba  referred to as  Jabba the Hut   in Docking Bay     Other deleted scenes from the movie  such as a close up of a stormtrooper riding on a Dewback  were included in a photo insert added to later printings of the book 
Smaller details were also different from the film version  for example  in the Death Star assault  Luke s callsign is Blue Five instead of Red Five as in the film  Also Obi Wan does not sacrifice himself  Vader actually defeats and executes him in the lightsaber duel  Charles Lippincott secured the deal with Del Rey Books to publish the novelization in November       By February       a half million copies had been sold    

Lucasfilm adapted the story for a children s book and record set  Released in       the    page Star Wars read along book was accompanied by a    rpm   inch gramophone record  Each page of the book contained a cropped frame from the movie with an abridged and condensed version of the story  The record was produced by Buena Vista Records  and its content copyrighted by Black Falcon  Ltd   a subsidiary of Lucasfilm  formed to handle the merchandising for Star Wars      
The Story of Star Wars was a      record album presenting an abridged version of the events depicted in Star Wars  using dialogue and sound effects from the original film  The recording was produced by George Lucas and Alan Livingston  and was narrated by Roscoe Lee Browne  The script was adapted by E  Jack Kaplan and Cheryl Gard  citation needed 

A radio drama adaptation of the film was written by Brian Daley  directed by John Madden  and produced for and broadcast on the American National Public Radio network in       The adaptation received cooperation from George Lucas  who donated the rights to NPR  John Williams  music and Ben Burtt s sound design were retained for the show  Mark Hamill  Luke Skywalker  and Anthony Daniels  C  PO  reprised their roles as well  The radio drama featured scenes not seen in the final cut of the film  such as Luke Skywalker s observation of the space battle above Tatooine through binoculars  a skyhopper race  and Darth Vader s interrogation of Princess Leia  In terms of Star Wars canon  the radio drama is given the highest designation  like the screenplay and novelization   G canon         
