When the Rebel leader Princess Leia is captured by the Empire, Luke Skywalker acquires stolen architectural plans of the Death Star and sets out to rescue her while learning the ways of a metaphysical power known as "the Force" from the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, secretly a Rebel leader, has obtained the schematics, but her ship is intercepted and boarded by Imperial forces under the command of Darth Vader.

Luke initially declines Obi-Wan's offer to accompany him to Alderaan and learn the ways of the Force, but he is left with no choice after Imperial stormtroopers murder his family and destroy his home while searching for the droids.

Seeking a way off the planet, Luke and Obi-Wan travel to the city of Mos Eisley and hire Han Solo and Chewbacca, pilots of the starship Millennium Falcon.

As Obi-Wan leaves to deactivate the tractor beam, Luke persuades Han and Chewbacca to help him rescue Leia, who is scheduled for execution after refusing to reveal the location of the Rebel base.

Luke joins the Rebellion's X-wing squadron in a desperate attack against the Death Star, while Han and Chewbacca leave to pay off a debt to the crime lord Jabba the Hutt.

Guided by the voice of Obi-Wan's spirit, Luke uses the Force to aim his torpedoes into the exhaust port, causing the Death Star to explode moments before it can fire on the Rebel base.

[26] Uncredited actors include Paul Blake as the bounty hunter Greedo,[27] Alfie Curtis as the outlaw who confronts Luke in the cantina,[c][30] and Peter Geddis as the Rebel officer who is strangled by Darth Vader.

[40] He used his early notes to compile a two-page synopsis titled Journal of the Whills, which chronicled the tale of CJ Thorpe, an apprentice "Jedi-Bendu", who was being trained by the legendary Mace Windy.

[56] While writing a third draft, Lucas claims to have been influenced by comics,[57] J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit,[58][59] Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces,[60] James George Frazer's The Golden Bough,[61] and Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment.

After Star Wars became tremendously successful, Lucasfilm announced that Lucas had already written twelve more Luke Skywalker stories, which, according to Kurtz, were "separate adventures" rather than traditional sequels.

Most of the visual effects used pioneering digital motion control photography developed by John Dykstra and his team, which created the illusion of size by employing small models and slowly moving cameras.

It also lacked most special effects; hand-drawn arrows took the place of blaster beams, and footage of World War II dogfights replaced space battles between TIE fighters and the Millennium Falcon.

Star Wars features many elements ostensibly derived from Flash Gordon, such as the conflict between rebels and imperial forces; the fusion of mythology and futuristic technology; the wipe transitions between scenes; and the text crawl at the beginning of the film.

[38][168][169] Robey has also suggested that the Mos Eisley cantina brawl was influenced by Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961), and that the scene in which Luke and his friends hide in the floor of the Millenium Falcon was derived from that film's sequel, Sanjuro (1962).

Lucasfilm marketer Charley Lippincott supported Fox's position after witnessing a five-year-old at the film's preview become upset by a scene in which Darth Vader chokes a Rebel captain.

[219] A. D. Murphy of Variety called the film "magnificent" and said Lucas had succeeded in his attempt to create the "biggest possible adventure fantasy" based on the serials and action epics of his childhood.

[221] John Simon of New York magazine also panned the film, writing, "Strip Star Wars of its often striking images and its highfalutin scientific jargon, and you get a story, characters, and dialogue of overwhelming banality.

"[225][226] Andrew Collins of Empire magazine awarded the film five out of five and said, "Star Wars' timeless appeal lies in its easily identified, universal archetypes—goodies to root for, baddies to boo, a princess to be rescued and so on—and if it is most obviously dated to the 70s by the special effects, so be it.

"[229] 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.

[231] Actor Raymond St. Jacques echoed Sagan's complaint, writing that "the terrifying realization ... [is] that black people (or any ethnic minority for that matter) shall not exist in the galactic space empires of the future.

The website's consensus reads: "A legendarily expansive and ambitious start to the sci-fi saga, George Lucas opened our eyes to the possibilities of blockbuster filmmaking and things have never been the same.

In an article intended for the cover of the issue, Time's Gerald Clarke wrote that Star Wars is "a grand and glorious film that may well be the smash hit of 1977, and certainly is the best movie of the year so far.

The result is a remarkable confection: a subliminal history of the movies, wrapped in a riveting tale of suspense and adventure, ornamented with some of the most ingenious special effects ever contrived for film."

[284][285] After ILM began to create CGI for Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Jurassic Park, Lucas decided that digital technology had caught up to his "original vision" for Star Wars.

Television commercials told children and parents that vouchers contained in a "Star Wars Early Bird Certificate Package" could be redeemed for four action figures between February and June 1978.

[350] Peter Biskind claimed that Lucas and Spielberg "returned the 1970s audience, grown sophisticated on a diet of European and New Hollywood films, to the simplicities of the pre-1960s Golden Age of movies ...

"[349][189] In contrast, Tom Shone wrote that through Star Wars and Jaws, Lucas and Spielberg did not betray cinema, but instead "plugged it back into the grid, returning it ... to its roots as a carnival sideshow, a magic act, one big special effect", which amounted to "a kind of rebirth.

[362] More than twenty years after the release of Star Wars, Lucas wrote and directed a prequel trilogy, consisting of the films The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005).

[368][369][370][371][372] Original trilogy cast members including Ford, Hamill, and Fisher reprised their roles, alongside new characters portrayed by Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, and Oscar Isaac.