Welcome to a look inside The Holocron. A collection of articles from the archives of *starwars.com no longer directly available.
(*Archived here with Permission utilising The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
The Star Wars Trilogy
“When I created the original Star Wars I was very interested in creating a modern myth to take the place that had been occupied by the Western. The Western was sort of the modern American mythology that helped the mores and the values and the way things worked in our society, which mythologies had done through time. I started working on this and realized that it had to be somewhere outside people’s known realm of awareness. That is where the Westerns were.
When George Lucas was making the first film of the Star Wars Trilogy, there were some scenes and sequences that did not turn out as well as he had hoped and one scene that he had to leave out completely. The scene involved Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt, which in the rush to get the film finished did not really seem necessary because it involved characters and incidents that did not appear until
To celebrate twenty years of Star Wars, George Lucas has finally released the film he originally intended. He has always said that Star Wars never achieved his full creative vision. After years of watching on a small screen, the trilogy can finally be seen again the way it was meant to be seen: in theaters, on a big screen, with fantastic sound.
George Lucas discusses the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition
“The original inspiration for bringing the films back to the big screen was the twentieth anniversary of the original release of Star Wars. Occasionally, we have shown the trilogy as one movie for various fan conventions. So, I said why don’t we try to release all three films, as a trilogy, within a few weeks of each other, so that people can see them like the Saturday matinee serials they were originally meant to be. I thought that would be a very appropriate way of celebrating the twentieth anniversary.”
The Characters
The Jedi Master Yoda was over 800 years old when he first met Luke Skywalker. For much of his life Yoda served as mentor and teacher to Jedi Knights. His origins were steeped in mystery. Yoda spent his last years hiding from the Emperor Palpatine on the swamp planet Dagobah.
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi was a hermit and recluse who lived on the planet of Tatooine when he met young Luke Skywalker. Ben Kenobi once went by the name Obi-Wan, and
Princess and Senator from the planet of Alderaan, Leia was a key leader of the Alliance to restore the Republic, the Rebel Alliance. While on a two-fold mission for the Alliance and her foster father, she became involved in the events that would lead her into the company of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.
Luke Skywalker was raised on a moisture farm by Owen and Beru Lars, whom he called uncle and aunt. They lived on the twin-sunned world of Tatooine. While Luke saw his future in the stars, Owen Lars kept him firmly at work on the farm and turned down his repeated requests to join the Academy. When Uncle Owen purchased a pair of droids from a group of Jawa merchants, Luke became wrapped up in the smaller droid’s quest. This led him to Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi Master living as a hermit in the barren and treacherous Jundland Wastes. Together with Obi-Wan and the two droids, Luke embarked on the adventure that would lead him to become a Rebel hero and Jedi Knight.
Darth Vader epitomized the Emperor’s New Order. Standing two meters tall and dressed in flowing black robes and black body armor, Vader was a tangibly evil symbol of the Emperor’s doctrine of rule through fear and terror. Vader was once Anakin Skywalker, expert pilot and disciple of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He had been a Jedi Knight waging the battle of the light side of the Force. Impatient with the slow learning method of Kenobi and the Jedi, Anakin turned toward Palpatine and was drawn by the power of the dark side. Kenobi tried to dissuade Anakin and draw him back. Corrupted and seduced by the dark side, Anakin would soon come to be known as the dreaded Darth Vader.
Many tags can be applied to the Corellian-born Han Solo: starship pilot, smuggler, pirate, and even Rebel hero. He became involved in the Galactic Civil War when he took on a simple transport job in a cantina in Tatooine’s Mos Eisley Spaceport. After jettisoning Jabba the Hutt’s cargo of spice to avoid an Imperial blockade, Han needed to raise enough credits to reimburse the crime lord. For seventeen thousand credits, he agreed to ferry Ben Kenobi, Luke Skywalker and two droids to Alderaan in his highly-modified stock light freighter, the Millennium Falcon.