It’s just a movie. It’s no big deal. I don’t think it’s altogether that well-made a movie, because I was working under extremely difficult conditions.
George Lucas
America couldn’t get enough of Star Wars in 1977. People (especially younger people) returned again and again to the cinema to see the film over and over, often in large groups of friends. Screenings of Star Wars were collective, almost interactive, events with audiences cheering on the heroes and booing the villains. For the first time since 1963, weekly cinema attendances in the United States exceeded twenty million. While children patiently waited for 1978 and the arrival of their long-promised Star Wars action figures, George Lucas found his life had changed – and he had changed cinema.
Wherever he went, Lucas found it hard to escape the impact of Star Wars. Darth Vader had become an instant cinematic icon, the villain audiences loved to hate. Vader (or rather more accurately, an anonymous actor dressed as the character), alongside droids C-3PO and R2-D2, joined the ranks of cinema greats of the past when – on 3 August 1977 – they added their unique foot- and hand-prints to the cement in the foyer of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, following in the hooves of fellow non-human star Trigger, Roy Rogers’s famous movie horse.
Lucasfilm was inundated with requests to license Star Wars merchandise items, everything from creature masks to ‘Force-filled’ instant meals and ‘Wookiee cookies’. Although Lucas had always believed that there were strong merchandising possibilities in Star Wars, he never expected anything like this, and certainly not so quickly. He tried his best to impose a quality standard upon any items to be produced, although this brought him into conflict with Twentieth Century Fox, which was keen to make the most of its surprise success, just in case the Star Wars boom went bust very quickly. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Lucas admitted: ‘In a way, this film was designed around toys. I’m not making much for directing this movie. If I make any money, it will be from the toys.’
Star Wars characters dominated the T-shirts worn by American kids and teenagers during the summer of 1977, pushing aside previous favourites like Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels, the Osmonds and tennis star Bjorn Borg. Both Marvel and Del Rey were astonished as the Star Wars comic book and novel entered reprint after reprint in order to keep up with soaring demand. To his horror, Stan Lee discovered that Marvel would be paying royalties to Lucasfilm almost immediately as sales rapidly soared past the once seemingly impossible 100,000 hurdle he had set. He also knew he faced a new negotiation for any future Star Wars-related comic books, and the power this time lay with Lucas.
Lucasfilm began hiring new staff simply to deal with the volume of calls and letters coming in requesting rights to produce Star Wars tie-ins. Kenner and its suppliers went into overdrive in an attempt to meet the promised delivery date of Star Wars action figures. The company’s early interest in taking on the main Star Wars toy licence proved to be prescient: it would go on to sell $1 billion worth of toys each year over the next seven years.
The unexpected success of Star Wars had seen some of those involved come into equally unexpected, but very welcome, wealth. Alec Guinness’s decision to take percentage ‘points’ in the movie’s profits now also looked like far-sighted wisdom, rather than the gamble it had been. He would make around $6 million overall from his participation in the three Star Wars movies, by far the biggest payday the veteran actor had ever seen. Lucas had a habit of rewarding key collaborators by issuing profit share points or fractions of points – although he also kept upfront fees and payments on the low side. Hamill, Ford and Fisher each gained two-thirds of a point, worth around $650,000 each.
Overall, Lucas dished out a full 25 per cent of his Star Wars profits in profit-point participation given to friends and co-workers. Producer Gary Kurtz scored five points, while most of the crew got one-twentieth of a point each, and back-office staff were given one two-hundredth each. Writers Huyck and Katz – who had helped polish the screenplay – got two points, while Lucas’s lawyer – who had helped to negotiate his unprecedented, immensely rewarding merchandise deal – was awarded a profit point. Soundtrack composer John Williams also got a point, while sound supervisor Ben Burtt was recognized for his contribution with a quarter-point. Others received cash bonuses, including $50,000 to Alan Dean Foster, who had written the Star Wars novel published under the Lucas byline, and James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, received an additional $10,000. Lucas even gave John Milius and Steven Spielberg a profit point each in an exchange that saw him take points in Big Wednesday and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
The key cast also had to deal with their new fame, but – aside from Harrison Ford – none at first was really adequately able to capitalize professionally on their Star Wars notoriety, although Carrie Fisher found a rewarding sideline appearing on weekly TV satire show Saturday Night Live.
By the end of August 1977, Star Wars had taken $100 million at the box office, passing Spielberg’s Jaws. The big question everyone was asking was ‘When will there be more Star Wars?’Although he had always planned on there being sequels if the film was a success (and he had enough material and concepts to provide various storylines, cut from the original overlong script outlines), Lucas knew he had to decide soon: if he didn’t act within two years, the sequel rights to Star Wars would revert to Twentieth Century Fox. Lucas was also aware that it could take another two-to-three years before he could get a second Star Wars film in cinemas, and the mania surrounding the first movie might have cooled dramatically by then.
There was another option to keep Star Wars alive in the minds of audiences: television. Almost a year after the success of Star Wars, Lucas was approached by a TV company to create a Star Wars TV special. Smith-Hemion had a track record of producing effective television specials, such as My Name is Barbra (1965), starring Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra:A Man and His Music (1965) and a 1976 television special adapting Peter Pan, starring Mia Farrow. Dwight Hemion and producing partner Gary Smith saw the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in late November 1978 as a prime spot for a spectacular television special that would attract lucrative advertising spots: their subject would be Star Wars.
Lucas was deep in pre-production on Raiders of the Lost Ark, his archaeologist adventurer movie to be directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford, so he was unable to give the proposed TV special his full attention. Lucas did agree to cooperate with the venture, providing the storyline and the main cast (except for veteran British actors Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness – who only appears in deleted footage from Star Wars). The deal gave Smith-Hemion access to the Star Wars costumes and props from the movie, the unique sound effects library and any unused footage.
Lucas went to material from his first draft of Star Wars for the story, reviving an idea he once had for a wrap-around to the main action of the film. Kurtz recalled that the original opening for Star Wars featured a visit to the Wookiee homeworld where a mother prepared to tell her son a bedtime story – that story would be the film of Star Wars. Hamill remembered that it was ‘an enchanted forest . . . You see a Wookiee mother trying to breastfeed this squealing baby Wookiee. He keeps gesturing toward the bookshelf, and there’s all this Wookiee dialogue going on. She goes and points to one particular book and the baby gets all excited. She takes the book off the shelf and we see it is titled “Star Wars”. She opens the book, and that’s when the ship comes overhead and the film as we know it starts.’
Kurtz recalled why this original opening concept had been rapidly discarded: ‘As soon as we got to discussing it over dinner one night, we realized what a fatal mistake it would be. When we found out how difficult it was to get one Wookiee costume looking right, we never considered creating a whole planet of them.’
Lucas now revived the idea of visiting the planet of the Wookiees – Chewbacca’s people – for the Smith-Hemion project. Scriptwriter Lenny Ripps was presented with a list of things to avoid and things to use in the story, and a rough outline (he was one of five writers who would work on the ninety-sevenminute special). The result was a story that saw Han Solo and sidekick Chewbacca escape Imperial entanglements in order to return to the Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk in time for the ‘Life Day’ holiday that Chewbacca hopes to spend with his family. According to director David Acomba, Lucas attended a couple of early production meetings, but was not involved in the show much beyond that.
The much-derided TV special opens with a lengthy sequence of Wookiee family life as Chewbacca’s relatives – wife Malla, father Itchy and son Lumpy – entertain themselves while waiting for Han and Chewie to arrive. There’s much incomprehensible Wookiee grunting dialogue, but no subtitles to make it clear what is being said. Imperial stormtroopers arrive searching for the rebels, including Chewbacca, and place a guard outside the Wookiees’ home.
Originally intended to run just an hour, the special was extended due to overwhelming advertiser interest in being associated with new Star Wars material. Kenner was a major sponsor, seeing the special as an opportunity to promote sales of its line of Star Wars action figures in the pre-Christmas holiday period. As a result, the already thin drama was stretched out, with the addition of comedy, musical and animated sequences. En route to Kashyyyk, Han and Chewie stop off at places viewers would recognized from the Star Wars movie, including a cantina run by Maude star Bea Arthur. Comedian Harvey Korman appears in a variety of guises as a four-armed cookery instructor, an incompetent robot and an amorous barfly. Art Carney plays a human purveyor of Life Day gifts. A Jefferson Starship performance and a song sung by Bea Arthur provided musical interludes. There are brief appearances for Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Kenny Baker as R2-D2, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO and Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, who sings a terrible song to the tune (almost) of the ‘Star Wars Main Theme’ at the climax.
The best part of this very poor production turned out to be an animated adventure Smith-Hemion commissioned from Canadian animation company Nelvana. Presented in the form of an entertainment watched by Chewie’s son, Lumpy, the cartoon introduces bounty-hunter Boba Fett (who would feature briefly in the Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, and become an instant fan favourite). The cartoon – originally commissioned to pad the special out to length – chronicles a battle over a talisman and sees Han, Leia and Luke encounter Fett for the first time. Don Francks voiced Boba Fett, a part later played by British actor Jeremy Bulloch. It’s the most Star Wars-like segment of the special and the first ever animated Star Wars adventure (several more would follow over the years). The most notorious sequence involved an erotic dance number performed by Diahann Carroll, viewed by a seemingly aroused Itchy (Chewbacca’s father).
Having abdicated his involvement in The Star Wars Holiday Special, Lucas was shocked when the finished item turned out to be nothing like the semi-sequel to his movie that he had originally envisaged. By the stage he saw the production, it was far too late to prevent the broadcast without incurring huge legal problems. All Lucas could do was ensure his name did not appear on the production as a scriptwriter or credited for the storyline, implying a lack of approval. The special aired on CBS on 17 November 1978 between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. but – unusually – the Nielsen ratings recording how many viewers watched the show have never been officially released.
To the horror of Lucas, The Star Wars Holiday Special rapidly became one of the most notorious television broadcasts of all time. In his book What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, author David Hofstede places the special at number one, calling it ‘the worst two hours of television ever’. Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith called the show a ‘[19]70s train wreck, combining the worst of Star Wars with the utter worst of variety television’. Kenner quickly axed its plans for a range of action figures based around Chewbacca’s extended family in the wake of the poor reaction to the special.
Never rebroadcast, The Star Wars Holiday Special built up a legendary reputation. A bootleg VHS recording of the original transmission (complete with commercials) became a ‘must have’ item of bad taste merchandise for committed Star Wars fans. Lucasfilm attempted to erase the special from its official history of Star Wars, but to no avail. Elements from the Holiday Special have turned up in various official Lucasfilm Star Wars products, ranging from comic strips and storybooks to videogames and novels.
Lucas told Maxim magazine in 2002 that the Holiday Special was just ‘one of those things that happened, and I just have to live with it’. In an online discussion with fans he admitted that the special ‘does not represent my vision for Star Wars’, and he reportedly told an Australian fan at a convention that, ‘If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it.’ For her part, Carrie Fisher – whose notorious contribution was the out-of-tune singing at the end – claimed she asked Lucas for a copy of the special as payment for recording her DVD commentaries for the Star Wars films. She said she screens it at parties, ‘mainly at the end of the night when I want people to leave’.
The legacy of The Star Wars Holiday Special is the animated sequence, commonly referred to as ‘The Faithful Wookiee’. The special was the first full-length sequel to Star Wars, and the cartoon in particular offered fans a glimpse of the wider universe in which these adventures took place, two years before the release of the official movie sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, in 1980. Nelvana’s animation was basic and some of the characters barely resembled their movie counterparts, but the cartoon was an exciting, brand new Star Wars story that wasn’t ruined by terrible variety acts and songs. It was played straight – certainly compared to the rest of the TV special – and it has endured as a genuinely interesting early Star Wars spin-off. The Boba Fett cartoon was eventually released officially as part of the Star Wars saga Blu-ray set in 2011.
Lucas eventually told StaticMultimedia.com in 2005 that he had learned from the experience of The Star Wars Holiday Special. ‘We let them use the characters and that probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but you learn from those experiences.’
After falling out with George Lucas over the early days of ILM, John Dykstra had set up on his own as Apogee Inc., using many of the same staff and the same Van Nuys warehouse that had given birth to ILM. One of the first projects that Apogee worked on was the Glen A. Larson TV series Battlestar Galactica (initially called ‘Star Worlds’). Larson had a track record of producing short-lived TV series riding on the back of successful movies (such as the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid-inspired Alias Smith and Jones) and, to Lucas, Battlestar Galactica looked no different. It also rankled him that the new show was being made for Universal, against whom he still carried a grudge after American Graffiti.
As a result, Lucasfilm encouraged Twentieth Century Fox to sue Universal, claiming the series was simply a television copy of Star Wars. Writing to Variety, Lucas outlined his case: ‘I feel strongly that Glen Larson and Universal Pictures have attempted to copy what I created for Star Wars and are continuing to attempt to pass their series off as some sort of Star Wars for television. This will be very harmful to what I have created and I strongly hope that Fox will be successful in attempts to protect us.’
Battlestar Galactica depicted a ragtag fleet of humans on the run from deadly robot Cylons, with whom they were at war, in search of a fabled planet called Earth. It was quite different in plot terms from Star Wars, but the look of the series and the special effects techniques used to achieve the space dogfights were very familiar, additionally helped by the fact that conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie and designer Joe Johnston had contributed to the show’s early development.
Universal counter-sued, claiming that Star Wars’ droid R2-D2 had been copied from the diminutive robots Huey, Dewey and Louie in their Silent Running from 1973. Years of acrimony and additional lawsuits followed before a judge found against Fox and Star Wars and in favour of Universal and Battlestar Galactica in 1980. The judge claimed that so strong was the cultural impact of Star Wars that there were, in fact, ‘hundreds of films guilty of infringing on Star Wars’. Battlestar Galactica’s initial run was short-lived (it was revived far more successfully with a TV mini-series in 2003, ironically in anticipation of the final Star Wars film, Revenge of the Sith), and the show was soon forgotten along with the lawsuit: so much so that Fox eventually hired Larson to run its television division.
Another casualty of the post-Star Wars Lucasfilm clearout had been marketing head Charles Lippincott. As the company grew, he had felt increasingly marginalized within the new structure and had gone by 1978.
One undoubted winner from the success of Star Wars was Kenner toys, which had taken an early risk by signing up for the action figure rights before the movie was released (thanks to Lippincott’s enthusiastic encouragement). The company issued ninety-two figures from the movie, selling over forty-two million units in 1978 alone, reaching sales of over 250 million units over the next eight years covering the first three Star Wars movies. It was reported in Newsweek in 1981 that Kenner had created $1 billion in retail sales, with between 6 and 15 per cent going straight to Lucasfilm. The toys were making more money than the movie ever had.
The summer of 1977 was an extraordinary time in movie culture, and the release of Star Wars had a major impact. The movie business would never quite be the same again, with merchandising and spin-offs becoming a much more accepted part of filmmaking. Other directors and studios tried to cash in on the ‘Star Wars effect’, producing the likes of Disney’s turgid The Black Hole (1979), the Italian Luigi Cozzi’s Starcrash (Scontri Stellari Oltre la Terza Dimensione, 1979) and the Roger Corman-produced Battle Beyond the Stars (1980). None of these, nor any of the many other Star Wars knock-offs, attracted the same phenomenal attention, box office success or dedicated fan following. Only George Lucas could produce an authentic follow-up to Star Wars, and he would take his space fantasy saga in a darker, more serious direction in The Empire Strikes Back.