"The magic of Star Wars doesn't lie only in it's brilliant special effects. It's power is derived from something simpler, and rarer: The romantic spirit that moves in it. Before it, we are all young again, and everything seems possible" Wow what a fantastic and beautifully worded ending!! Quite an amazing "making of documentary" really, framed with the droids acting and voicing so much material, going through the entire story (MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS?!!) and just by its very production and existence the documentary itself somehow captures the era, and the excitement of the new era that Star Wars birthed. Definitely a great reminder of this incredible achievement!

I wish I could go back to 1977 - what a magical year!

I remember I was 5 back in 1977 and I'd see TV commercials for this film. I knew it was something special and begged my dad to take me to the theatre so I could see it. And it was, I had to get the toys and I got those too, the following Christmas. Those were magical times, thank you Mr. Lucas for sharing us your story and vision.

I saw Star Wars 7 times in the theater, twice I stayed to watch it again. I was 11.

The Falcon otw to land on Yavin while the Rebel guy checks his speed or whatever is one of my favorite scenes in the OT. I wish modern Star Wars gets more slow/peaceful scenes like that.

0:51 The face of those kids says it all.

Star Wars was only the second movie I had ever seen in the theaters, it was a re-release around 1979 or 1980, somewhere around there. I was too young to remember the full experience, but I distinctly remember that I was a babbling idiot walking with my parents to the car, I loved it. I'll be 46 next month, I have my own KZfaq channel that's mostly Star Wars stuff, and my inner child is still alive and well. I'm forever a fan.

I have been a fan since I saw it aged 5 in 1977. I had THE biggest crush on Luke! lol. I remember getting that year for Christmas, the miniature figures of Luke, complete with extendable Lightsabre, with the photo of Luke looking out into the desert, with the double sunset, R2D2, and C3PO. My dad very carefully took off the plastic, and cut around the the picture of Luke so I could keep it. I think I still have it somewhere. My younger cousin, who I regard as my brother, have always been super close, but our very first argument, was over him grabbing hold of my Luke picture, and tearing it slightly. He'd just turned 4, the week before! I think in our entire lives, we've only argued five times, but these sort of things aged 5, are important! lol. As it turned out, he was a big Star Wars fan too. The Christmas Empire came out, he got an AT-AT, along with Darth Vader and Han Solo. A couple of years later, I ended up giving him my Luke, R2D2, C3PO and a Chewbacca, I'd acquired. About 10 years later, his nephew was playing with them, and now they're about to come out again for his son. Looking back in hindsight, the Nerd/Geek, which ever one it is, in me, wishes now that I'd never given him Luke, and most of all, I wish I hadn't put a couple of teeth marks in the lightsabre, especially as if it had still been mint, it would have been worth something! But, looking back at the kid I was, I enjoyed playing with the toy, and had fun. along with other members of my family, so it's not all bad.

Oh man!!! I remember my best friend had this on laser disc w/the Making of ESB. We watched over & over again! I love the campiness of it. C-3PO: "Oh no! It's Darth Vader!!!" Relax, goldenrod, he was the guy who built you....my little 80's-kid mind would have exploded if I had known that at the time. I don't think anyone who didn't experience it in the late 70's/early 80's knows how important it was to every day life. And it was STAR WARS, not "A New Hope" or "Episode IV", it was "STAR WARS"...period. Seeing this brings back a lot of memories of playing SW in the backyard w/neighbor kids or spending a quiet weekend afternoon with a box of action figures & a few playsets or ships (if your folks could afford them or if you had awesome friends that would let you borrow or trade them). SW, Indy, Ghostbusters, & anything associated with Spielberg or Lucas wasn't just enjoyed; it was consumed into your life. I miss those days, I truly do.

"Perhaps it will never end." If only they'd known...

Happy 40th anniversary Star Wars! Today 40 years ago Star Wars (later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope) was released to massive acclaim and launched a franchise that introduced and united all of us thanks to the Force. The Force is strong with this one, the one that started it all. May the Force be with you. Always.

I actually remember watching this when I was a kid, happy days.

God does this bring back a lot of awesome memories for me.I am now 60 years old,I saw Star Wars when I was 14.I also had this special on Laserdisc.Thanks for the memories.

I spent ages with my mates throwing stones at power cables because of this just to hear the blaster sound lol

I could watch this over and over again,,,I`m lying through my arse I HAVE watched it over and over again,movie magic at it`s best and it still holds up :)

貴重な映像ありがとうございます、スターウォーズは SFとして 勉強させてもらいました また ラストに父親であることが インパクト残ってますね

6:29 Amazing, that's the same effect we see in the beggining of Episode I when Amidala talks to the Vice-Roy.

Awesome just awesome. I remember in 1995, Kelloggs Corn Puffs had a offer to get this documentary. I don’t remember exactly what I had to do to get the video in the mail but I was glad that I got it. Thanks for posting it!

American graffiti is an American treasure! One of my favorite films

I never got to see the original premier of Star Wars in the Theaters in 1977 as I was only 2 but I did see it 20 years later inMay of 1997 on the big screen for the first time ,in the remastered version and it was AWESOME !! Afterward I saw this ad on the back of a cereal box to send away for a video of The Making OF Star Wars so i sent it and 2 weeks later it arrived in the mail box in a VHS case I still have it and now I find this Thanks KZfaq!

I remember watching this on television back in 1977. It was amazing then, more so now.

I was 17 when this was released. Changed the trajectory of my life

I loved it, watch it several times & I loved it every time....

Wow that part near the end was so 70s

that obi-wan-ben-kenobi character looks interesting, perhaps even worth a mini serie

The last line--"perhaps, R2, it will never end." Oh boy, did he say a mouthful there.

It's still a shame that 45 years later you still can't buy or rent a bluray of this film.

What I just realized that I hadn't before is when the millennium falcon was pulled into the deathstar by tractor beam, who brought the landing gears down so it could land in the hangar? The guys inside were hiding and acted like the ship was empty.

I was 11yrs old when this film came out however I did see the on First Choice [on a free-pre-view weekend in 1983] The channel got re-branded as TMN [which we don't get].I do have all the films on DVD [All 9 of them.]

The first and only movie I ever saw in the theater too many times to count.

"The Princess and who she is going to end up with is still anyone's guess... I will say that Luke is more devoted to her than Han Solo is." Obviously George had not yet made the decision that Luke and Leia were siblings.

3:42 actually uses an alternate take of the main theme (or is based off of it) as all the recording of the theme feature that additional start up

11:18 here comes the ✨ *G O N K* ✨ _hello gonk_ Welcome There he is, he is here~

Goodness! Carrie Fisher so young here at 45:41.

Mágico mágico.. gracias

Thanks for this

Thanks for posting. Hard to believe the powers that be have destroyed a once legendary franchise.

RIP Star Wars 1977-2012

Amazing

I was there where they made food prints in front of Chinese Theatre, I have pictures :)

sensacional !!!!!

It changed everything!!!

and then there were Disney and The Star Wars Holiday Special to fuck it all up,

funny how they always say 'chewbacca - the wookie'

Life was great then

William Conrad did the narration. The same man that did the intro for the Buck Rogers program.

The other movies shown in the documentary that partially helped George Lucas for STAR WARS, were The Black Swan (1942), starring Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara, The Mark of Zorro (1940), also starring Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone, My Darling Clementine (1946), which starred Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell and directed by John Ford and the Flash Gordon Serials of the late 30s. He was also influenced by Akira Kurosawa films, Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress.

I would just like to say, I was absolutely confused while watching this

Why do I get the feeling that the star field shown at 26:27 looks sort of like the star field seen at the intro of The Original Star Trek Series?

Until now, I've only known the Hungarian dubbing voices, but the original is also impressive

I like this documentary

Espectácular espectacular

William Conrad narrating wow thats on early documentary of Star Wars !!!!!

ストレートに感動した🎉❤　ベイダー卿に泣いた😂

Wasn't this one of the exclusive documentaries included in the limited ISD Executor box edition?

A long time ago in the summer of 1977, I was a 10 year old kid who was just about to graduate from Elementary School, and who, one day, walked into a movie theatre to see "some far-out space movie" that had rapidly become "the talk of the town" on the schoolyard playground... I walked in an innocent, naive little child, only interested in Mad Libs, Marshall Brodien's TV Magic Cards, Bigfoot, Duncan Yo-yos, and Evel Knievel and his Action Stunt Cycle... I walked out ABSOLUTELY CHANGED FOREVER. On that glorious day, I would see the GREATEST movie that would EVER be made. That groundbreaking film was STAR WARS, from writer/director George Lucas, and it would TOTALLY change my life (as well as simultaneously changing the lives of COUNTLESS others around the entire world). SW absolutely blew me away, filling my heart with joy, stimulating my imagination, and kick-starting my love for cinema. That day was so momentous for me. I would never be the same again... I will never forget it. From the moment the 20th Century Fox fanfare and John Williams' theme blasted through the theatre speaker system, and the text "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" and that "1930's Flash Gordon Serial" inspired opening crawl came on the screen... And as that gigantic Star Destroyer appeared, flying over my head, towering above me as I sat in my theatre seat... and kept going... and going... and going... And as the entire audience gasped with amazement... At that VERY moment, I was instantaneously mesmerized, transfixed, and transformed... And I was barely 5 minutes into the film... I still had 2 MORE HOURS to go! As I sat in total wonderment, I was terrified by a helmeted figure in black, Darth Vader... In fact, the whole audience "booed" him as he made his entrance.. .We knew NOTHING about the story yet, but just KNEW that this guy deserved a collective "booing"!... It was like we were watching a SILENT MOVIE!... And as the movie continued, I was thrilled by the heroic exploits of the dashing smuggler Han Solo and the feisty Princess Leia, and emboldened by the brave, heroic, idealistic actions of the farm boy turned hero of the galaxy, Luke Skywalker! And by the film's spectacular climax of the rebel assault on the Death Star (the greatest ending EVER committed to celluloid, BTW), my heart was pounding, and my spirit was soaring... And I will NEVER forget the standing ovation of applause that erupted as the end credits rolled... Everyone in that audience didn't know it yet, but we had all just been first-hand witnesses to cinematic HISTORY! Now, I had ALWAYS loved Sci-fi/Fantasy films, television, and comics BEFORE Star Wars existed, watching reruns of Star Trek and Batman on TV, watching the Planet of the Apes and James Bond 007 movies on TV, and reading Amazing Spider-Man comics... but SW took things to a whole new level... This was a monumental spectacle on such a grand scale that I (or ANYONE) had NEVER seen before, even eclipsing the magnificent achievement that was 2001: A Space Odyssey from 9 years earlier ("Man, I wish I could have seen THAT ONE in the theatre!"). Plus, unlike most Sci-fi around this time (which were very dystopian), this was actually FUN! Moreover, this was NOT The Apple Dumpling Gang, Herbie Rides Again, Benji, The Bad News Bears, or any of the other 70's kiddie "dreck" that I was being subjected to in the theatre at that time... No, this was something VERY DIFFERENT... Now, thankfully, it wasn't ALL awful "dreck"... Even at that young age, I had managed to see a very small handful of very good and (for their time) very impressive big-screen spectacles in the theatre, such as The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), At the Earth's Core (1976), Logan's Run (1976), and King Kong (1976)... but NOTHING could have prepared me (or the rest of the world) for the earth-shattering phenomenon that was STAR WARS and the change it would bring... the film that would propel a 1970's audience (both young AND old alike) FAR beyond their wildest film-going expectations, and revolutionize the motion picture industry FOREVER in the process. Words can never fully describe what it was like to be alive in the summer of 1977 during the peak height of "Star Wars Mania"... except to say that it was pure MAGIC. I will never forget the day that I went to see Star Wars for the first time... May 25th, 1977... My father took my younger brother and me... I remember we went in my father's company truck (my brother and I rode in the bed of the truck), I remember that we stopped at Burger Chef first to have dinner, and I got one of the four SW promotional posters that they were selling there (I got the one with C-3PO and R2-D2... the first time that I ever laid eyes on ANY characters from SW!)... I remember that the theatre ticket line went on for what seemed to me like forever... I remember my father bought us both a Hershey bar, and he got a bucket of popcorn with extra butter for us all to share...("How do I remember all that?!?")... And when the movie was over, I remember the audience erupting into insane thunderous cheers and applause that I had never experienced before! Naturally, my brother loved the movie, too... but the amazing thing was that even my father (who probably just thought he was taking his children to see some "dumb kid's film") was crazy about it as well!... My mother didn't go that night, and she always regretted it... She told me much later in life that if she had known that it was to be such an important moment in my life, she would have loved to experience my VERY FIRST viewing of Star Wars!... Of course, she DID take my brother and I to see it many times after my first viewing ...And she LOVED it, too! I became an instant fanatic... I saw the film eleven times in the movie theatre during its initial run (which wasn't hard to do, as it stayed at our local theatre for an entire year!)... I sneaked my portable tape recorder into the theatre and audio-recorded the entire film so that I could listen to the adventure over and over in the comfort of my own bedroom... I dressed up in a make-shift Darth Vader costume for Halloween... I filled many sketchbooks with countless drawings of the creatures and spaceships... I collected the action figures, trading cards, posters, books, and model kits (and I STILL have all of that "stuff!")... I always drank out of my Star Wars cup... I always wore my Star Wars T-shirt... I listened to John Williams' Star Wars soundtrack album constantly, becoming a fan of symphonic and film score music... I watched "The Making of Star Wars" TV special, becoming fascinated by the way movies were made, even making a few myself with my Super-8 camera... I watched the Academy Awards for the very first time to see my favorite movie sweep the Oscars with 10 nominations and 7 wins... I even watched the "infamous" Holiday Special in 1978 ... Lumpy... Itchy... Harvey Korman... Bea Arthur... Wookiee-ookiees... And I LOVED it... I will NEVER forget when my parents took me to the record store to get the John Williams soundtrack... We were driving home, and I was in the back seat of the car, looking at the LP... "Something is WRONG here", I said to myself... Well, it turned out that my parents had accidentally purchased the MECO DISCO VERSION! ... We had to turn around and go back to the store to exchange it! And my Star Wars "madness" didn't end there, either... Oh, no... I ate up ANYTHING Sci-Fi related... I religiously watched Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers on TV, and went to see Close Encounters, Superman:TM, Alien (my 1st R-rated film!), Moonraker, The Black Hole, and Star Trek:TMP in the theatre (all CLASSICS in their own right) ...Hell, I even went to see some real "oddities" like Message From Space and Starcrash! ...If a movie featured kit-bashed model spaceships dangling in front of studio-bound starfields... I WAS THERE!... ANYTHING to give this Middle School SW "junkie" that Star Wars" high" again... It would take, of course, 3 LONG YEARS until I finally got another OFFICIAL Star Wars "fix"! And after 46 years, I continue to love STAR WARS more and more... It has aged like the finest wine, and it is STLL my #1 favorite movie of all time... Followed by my 2nd favorite movie of all time: The Empire Strikes Back... And my 3rd favorite movie of all time: Return of the Jedi... These three movies are flawless and perfect, collectively making up not only the greatest cinematic trilogy ever made, but the 3 greatest films of ANY kind ever made, and the greatest cinematic story ever told... PERIOD. I love ALL of Star Wars... Prequels... Sequels... But in the end, when you get right down to it, it all comes back to that first film: Its tale is timeless.. Its themes universal... Its craftsmanship impeccable... It is the perfect story... The perfect film... A phenomenon... A bona fide classic.. A MASTERPIECE.. I will always be thankful to George Lucas for taking me to his galaxy far, far away... Words can never express the utter joy and happiness that his SIX STAR WARS FILMS have given me, and continue to give me to this very day... I'd thank him for showing me how to remain "young at heart", no matter HOW old I get... And in particular, I'd thank him for that life-altering day in the summer of 1977 when I walked into that movie theatre to see "that far-out space movie", aka: THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE, for the very 1st time. It's odd to think a that a mere film could have that kind of power to change one's life in such a profoundly positive way. But then again, this is no "MERE" film, is it? And just think, things could have gone VERY DIFFERENTLY and HORRIBLY WRONG that day if I had instead gone to see some "awful piece of dreck" that was ALSO playing in the theatre at the same time... like Tentacles ("Yikes!")... or Viva Knievel ("Ouch!")... or Breaker! Breaker! ("Jeez!")... or Pete's Dragon ("Ugh!").

sick mate

In 1977, my noble pet mixed breed dog Rex died on Friday March 11 by night. He was twelve years old.

Thanks thanks thanks....

C3PO: Perhaps it will never end. Truer words were never spoken.

Funny when you think and recall C-3PO is trembling in fear at the sight of the one who built/created him...

I want the control room from this as a playset!

Wow! Narrated by William Conrad you cant get anymore important.

Even in "a galaxy far, far away" girls go for bad boys. The look on Carrie Fisher's face when she talks about how "powerful and dangerous" Darth Vader is says it all.

Eu assisti no cinema em 1978 eu acho, 2 vezes, mas teve gente que foi assistir 3 ou mais vezes.

The FORCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE!!

The set design in the special definitely feels very not-Star Wars. Very clean, pristine, 2001ish

Happy 45th Anniversary to Star Wars for Next Year 😃😃😃😃😃😃

That area R2 and 3p0 were in seems like something out of old Dr Who or something like it

Can't wait to see this movie..... when does it come out?

I guessed the voice of the narrator correctly. William Conrad from the 1970s TV show "Cannon" and smoke detector commercials.

GREAT!!! Thank you!

That's me on the left at 52 seconds. Just kidding

Is any of this stuff on 4k realises?

We need a special cut with Mike being in picture.

Imagine what these people would have thought of the vile sequels? Real fans love CONTENT, and NOT the label applied to a product by nostalgia vampires sucking the wonder and awe away from truly epic and inspirational sources.

19:11 he did it he said the thing!!!1!1!

Is that (a very young!) Noel Sharkey at 28:20??

Haha, Lucas rooting for Luke and Leia….. he clearly wasn’t sure about all the further plot points about families….

2 golden legs...

I enjoyed the copy but not the narration. I found detailed accuracy in this fictitious work.

9:28 Maybe he remembers what Anakin did to Padme and can't bear to look at him

The movie was so big they made a documentary same year it was released 😂😂😂

1:53 It was this moment R2D2 got cancelled, making a highly inappropriate and droidist impersonation of an MSE-6.

Will you be uploading the Star Wars TFA special stuff?

Yknow Good ol' Chewbacca there was the absolute hero of this sad little saga.

I was born In 1977...Luke?...Luke?...You're not looking at me Luke... - SpaceBalls

Add a Comment... You're On... Let's Ride...

Starwars will forever have a place in my heart. The first 6 one, the rest is garbage

This is not the making this is the story

I dont like how they just called lightsabers "laser swords" and tie fighters as planes

Thay: Thay Giau Dep Tho v.v…

Thank you George Lucas 💞

Something about the title crawl here feels so much more authentic and magical. It's because your mind knows this isn't CGI, and that makes it feel so much more realistic.

Flash Gordon sfx really, who’s buying that?

Were the droid segments filmed at Elstree? That set looks like something out of a Dr.Who episode. Or maybe a collection of Dr.Who episodes...

Celine Vs. Leslie Cheung Hat

That's that Vader...

Era 1976/77 hay q saber entender muchas cosas

My lazer sword is getting hard for this.