March 2016 marks the 40th Anniversary of when STAR WARS first went into production, another reason to celebrate the ongoing success of the saga.
Much of the story is familiar to us. After two weeks of troubled location work in Tunisia, the film moved to production at EMI-Elstree and Shepperton Studios and for the best part of three months (and in comparative secrecy) the world of Luke and Co. was conceived across many sets. Lucas’ trials and tribulations are recounted in greater detail in JW Rinzler’s excellent official account, THE MAKING OF STAR WARS, which has been reprinted in hard-back recently after a very successful first run release.
The book also contains some background on the teaser trailer’s production:
I have purchased both the hard-back and the paperback versions, the latter very useful reading on a train and you can pick up a copy on Amazon for a reasonable price. The book features rare pictures and a full schedule of dates, shooting materials and the complete account of all the drafts created from 1973. Rinzler also published two official accounts of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and RETURN OF THE JEDI.
Alan Dean Foster has written the official novelization for THE FORCE AWAKENS and several books have emerged as visual companions.
It seems rather weird now that so much has emerged because of this film that the studios had no faith in and couldn’t even get a wide release on it’s initial release in 1977. Even more so that fans can now quote all manner of statistics (number of theatres, box-office gross, cast and crew names, the sub-characters etc)
One thing that often is overlooked in light of the successes of AVATAR and now FORCE AWAKENS is where films are placed in terms of inflation adjusted dollars.
The following website provides an interesting number of statistics and places the 1939 classic Oscar Winner GONE WITH THE WIND at Number One, above STAR WARS EPISODE IV – A NEW HOPE. Another favourite of film fans, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, the 1965 Oscar-winning Musical, comes third.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm
