Welcome to Bring Back That Classic! Your weekly dose of pop culture nostalgia!
Where we review classic products such as toys, games, fashion, and food!
For this first edition of Bring Back That Classic! I wanted to get the big one out of the way first, because Star Wars has now grown to be such a big enterprise by spawning toys, trading cards, cartoon series, comics, novels, and so on that carries on until today, now forty-one years since the first film was released. Most of what I will be covering today will be based on the time period of the first film, 'A New Hope', so a lot of the story lines from this time are considered Legends in Star Wars lore (as opposed to the story lines which are being published in the past seven years or so since Disney bought over Lucasfilm, is considered Canon in lore). I hope you're following me so far. Did they imagine that their franchise would grow this huge when they first began? Let's find out!
After the success of his feature film American Graffiti, 20th Century Fox funded writer and director George Lucas $9.5 million for the production of his space opera film series entitled Star Wars. The film was in production for four years and was shot in both Tunisia and Death Valley, California with soundstages in England. The first film, 'A New Hope' was released on May 25, 1977 starring then unknown actors Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and the villian, Darth Vader voiced by James Earl Jones.
Although the film initially opened up only to forty-two theaters, the filmed raked in almost $3 million on it's first week of screening, and $100 million by the end of the summer. The film received six Academy Awards, including a special achievement award for sound. The film was praised for it's revolutionary special effects.
Star Wars - A New Hope premier at Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California
Source
But let's back up for just a second. Before the young George Lucas would release his movie, in 1976, he was shopping around for companies that would make toys for his upcoming film. He negotiated merchandise ownership rights in exchange for a small fee for writing and directing the movie. This would help promote it while making a little business on the side off of the merchandise sales. This was a daring move by Lucas as merchandising wasn't a very lucrative business at the time and also there were a low expectations for the film.
As he approached the biggest toy manufacturers at the time, Mego Corporation who had produced action figures such as World's Greatest Super Heroes and Micronauts toy lines, they turned him down. I'm sure they regretted it by 1982 when the company went bankrupt and in 1983 shut down their business. The rights would go to a then small and unknown company called Kenner Products who, if you don't already recognize the name or logo would later with the success of Star Wars, produce popular toys like The Real Ghostbusters, Superman, Stretch Armstrong, Centurions and the list goes on and on. We will probably cover more of their products in future editions of Bring Back That Classic!
With little knowledge and barely a few sketches and attributes of the characters, the few people in the little company that could would craft and mold toys for an unseemly successful franchise. Not only that, but they weren't able to meet the deadline for the film's release, so they made a very risky decision to have pre-orders of the toys for the Christmas holidays and have productions completed in early 1978. As we all know now, the merchandise for Star Wars was a success and both Kenner and Lucas would make lots of money from the business. Kenner would later be bought over by Hasbro in 1991.
The rest is history. Star Wars would become a phenomenal success and build a cult following even until today in this age of information, the countless fans and 'historians' speculating what the films, cartoons, comics, video games and novels are trying to convey and theorizing what will happen in future productions. The characters are iconic in design and character development, the music was great, and the stories were amazing for the time. There are many hardcore fans upset by the recent stories, but come on, it's time to let it go. The Skywalker story is complete, and it's time for a new generation to enjoy the wonderment that is Star Wars.
Thank you for reading and supporting! If there is any product you would like me to cover for Bring Back That Classic!, please leave a comment below! One Love!