YouTube video shows Alec Guinness being nice about Star Wars

This YouTube video shows Alec Guinness talking about Star Wars on the BBC's Parkinson show in 1977. The film was shortly to open in London's West End and Guinness was doing a round of publicity.

Looking back at Star Wars Weekly – issue 3

The brilliant, if shamelessly inaccurate, cover of Star Wars Weekly issue 3

Our look at the UK's Star Wars Weekly comic reaches issue 3 – February 22 1978.

Princess Leia: Damsel in distress or feminist icon?

Giving the orders: Princess Leia changes the rescue plan

The third in an occasional series of posts about the characters of Star Wars looks at the only young woman in the galaxy.  

From The Wizard of Oz to Hidden Fortress: the moments from other films spotted in Star Wars

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940)

Star Wars

Read some of the original reviews and you’d think that making Star Wars was a lot like creating Frankenstein’s Monster: You just stitched together bits of other people’s films and then let it loose upon the box office. Critics of the time loved to show how clever they were by cataloguing the images and plot ideas they had caught Lucas lifting from other films.

Looking back at Star Wars Weekly – issue 2

The cover of Star Wars Weekly issue two

February 15, 1978. In most of Britain, Star Wars had been on release for less than a week.   

That Wednesday saw the arrival of issue two of Star Wars Weekly – Marvel's UK version of the comic that the US had seen the previous year.