[Star Wars 01] • The Secret History of Star Wars

Star Wars is one of the most important cultural phenomena of the Western

world. The tale of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and the fall and redemption of

Anakin Skywalker has become modern myth, an epic tragedy of the corruption of

a young man in love into darkness, the rise of evil, and the power of good

triumphing in the end. But it didn't start out that way. In this thorough

account of one of cinema's most lasting works, Michael Kaminski presents the

true history of how Star Wars was written, from its beginnings as a science

fiction fairy tale to its development over three decades into the epic we now

know, chronicling the methods, techniques, thought processes, and struggles of

its creator. For this unauthorized account, he has pored through over four

hundred sources, from interviews to original scripts, to track how the most

powerful modern epic in the world was created, expanded, and finalized into

the tale an entire generation has grown up with.