USA: George Lucas joins fans in celebrating the 30th anniversary of "Star Wars"

On Monday night (April 23, 2007), "Star Wars" fans had the "force with them" once again, as they lined up outside the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences' Goldwyn Theater for a special screening celebrating the film's 30th anniversary. "Well, it's just a phenomenon," explained Bob Weinert, who remembers seeing the film when it first came out 30 years ago. "It's just a great movie. It's great." Edward Cound, of Los Angeles, also believes the epic sci-fi adventure is one of the all-time classics. "We were just talking about whether people would still be watching this in 100 years and I think yeah! It's a good story," said Cound. Adding star power to the event, which took place in Beverly Hills, was "Star Wars" creator and director George Lucas. The iconic filmmaker, who admits to still watching and enjoying the movie whenever it makes it way to the small screen, told Reuters that the film is very important to him. "Well, in the end I spent 20 years of my life making it, so of course it feels like my baby," explained Lucas. "Because, I worked very hard on it, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a long, long time. It's a big part of my life. It was designed to inspire people to use their imagination, so I'm glad that it's being used for what it was designed for." Actor Mark Hamill, who played hero Luke Skywalker, was also part of the celebration. He admits though that his expectations at the time were not that high. "Well, I had a friend who worked in the L.A. Art Museum and I told him to look up all the grosses for fantasy films and science fiction since the sound era, from like 1929 on," said Hamill. "I looked at the statistics and said, 'I think we'll be more successful than "Planet of the Apes."' That was my prediction." Also marking the film's 30 anniversary is the publishing of J.W. Rinzler's new book, "The Making of Star Wars." More than just a promotional book, Rinzler's account seeks to strip away a lot of the mythology about the movie's creation that has grown up over the years, providing a contemporaneous view into the movie's origins, uncolored by its eventual success, which was not always guaranteed. In fact, a skeptical 20th Century Fox whittled away the budget on the film. But as Lucas was forced to fund most of the movie's preproduction, Alan Ladd Jr., then the studio's production chief, emerged as a hero, persuading the board to issue a greenlight on the project. But even on May 25, 1977, when the movie opened to lines that snaked around Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, Ladd Jr. told Reuters that no one involved was quite convinced that they were witnessing a pop cultural phenomenon. "We opened I think in 36 or 37 theater's and we broke 36 house records in the first night. I couldn't figure it out." said Ladd Jr. "I called George and he says that science fiction films open like that. But, it just kept going and going and going." And it still does some 30 years later.

ITN Source | April 27, 2007

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