for: Star Wars (disambiguation) portal: Star Wars Logo.svg Star Wars is an epic space opera franchise initially conceived by George Lucas during the 1970s and significantly expanded since that time. The first film in the franchise was simply titled Star Wars, but later had the subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope added to distinguish it from its sequels and prequels. Star Wars was released on May 25, 1977 by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, initially spawning two sequels. Twenty-two years after Star Wars was released, Lucas began the release of a second trilogy as a prequel to the original trilogy.

The franchise has spawned other media including books, television series, video games, and comic books. These supplements to the film trilogies comprise the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and have resulted in significant development of the series' fictional universe. As of 2008, the overall box office revenue generated by the six Star Wars films has totalled approximately $4.3 billion, making it the third-highest grossing film series.

Setting

The events depicted in Star Wars media take place in a fictional galaxy. Many species of alien creatures (often humanoid) are depicted. Robotic droids are also commonplace and are generally built to serve their owners. Space travel is common, and many planets in the galaxy are members of a Galactic Republic, later reorganized as the Galactic Empire.

One of the prominent elements of Star Wars is the "Force", which is an omnipresent form of energy which can be harnessed by those with that ability. It is described in the first produced film as "an energy field created by all living things 1 surrounds us, penetrates us, 2 binds the galaxy together." The Force allows users to perform a variety of supernatural feats (such as telekinesis, clairvoyance, precognition, and mind control) and also can amplify certain physical traits, such as speed and reflexes; these abilities can vary from user to user and can be improved through training. While the Force can be used for good, it has a dark side that, when pursued, imbues users with hatred, aggression, and malevolence. The six films feature the Jedi, who use the Force for good, and the Sith, who use the dark side for evil in an attempt to take over the galaxy. In the expanded Universe many dark side users are Dark Jedi rather than Sith, mainly because of the Rule of Two (see Sith#Origin).

Feature films

The Star Wars franchise began as a film series. The original trilogy comprised three films: Star Wars, released on May 25, 1977, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, released on May 21, 1980, and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, released on May 25, 1983. The opening crawl of the sequels disclosed that they were numbered as "Episode V" and "Episode VI" respectivelyFact: date=September 2008, though the films were generally advertised solely under their subtitles. Once Star Wars became a success and sequels were realized, Lucas numbered the initial film as the fourth episode in his series and gave it the subtitle A New Hope when the film was re-released in 1981.