Star Wars
It is hard to find any other media franchise in the world that would make the same super massive impact on show business & pop culture in general as Star Wars. The history begins in 1977 (which is 46 years in 2023 — the year when this description was made). So, in 2027, the world expects to behold large festivities organized everywhere around the globe to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the franchise — you should agree that only a handful of other works have lived long enough to meet their 5-decade anniversary. To celebrate with the entire world, by this year, our website plans to amass not less than a hundred themed online free games for everyone’s enjoyment. So far, we’re actively working on the expansion of the list of our gaming offers.General description of the universe
The history began in 1971, when the creator of the entire universe George Lucas — now, one of the richest people in the film media industry on the planet — started to conceive Star Wars. It was thought to be a not large project, which would help him earn a living back in those times when he was a small-size filmmaker (by the time he made his locomotive film saga, he only directed & written two movies — in 1971 & 1973).
Today, Mr. Lucas is not only a filmmaker but also a businessman, philanthropist, producer, entrepreneur & one of the most notable people in his industry in the 20th & 21st centuries. By the way, he is also known to millions of people as the guy who did Indiana Jones (which also created a massive legacy in all aspects of pop culture). It seems like everything that this man touches becomes gold or even diamond.
Around that time when Mr. Lucas was working on the first film in the series, he conceived & generally outlined the rest of the films: 9 of them (three trilogies with three films each). The first one in 1977 was conceived to be a super-tight-budget film, so most of the decorations, costumes, models & props were made literally of junk, garbage & rubbish. The total budget was only 11 million but it collected in the box office alone $775 million, which at that time was the most outstanding result, which no one could expect, even the creator. Mr. Lucas was then a friend of filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who was a bigger director than him. And Mr. Spielberg told on the eve of the premiere of the Lucas’ film that the film would be a bigger commercial hit than his then-played-in-theaters ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’. Mr. Lucas disagreed & made a bet with Mr. Spielberg to exchange 2.5% of all profits their films would generate (probably, to back himself up financially in case of failure of his brainchild at the box office). Mr. Spielberg took the bet and, as history shows, made a perfectly right decision — by this day, he still receives 2.5% of all the profits that this space opera makes. That, our dear reader, is hundreds of millions of dollars cumulatively over all the years because the entire space opera franchise made over 10 billion dollars only in the box office (if to include here all the merch & side hustles, which are also enormously numerous, the total cash inflow that this film universe generated for soon-to-be 50 years in pop culture, we easily believe it must be close to 100 billion dollars cumulatively).
The initial film of ’77 became one of the first international hits, which are today commonly called ‘blockbusters’. It was aired for more than a year by several cinemas — something that had never happened before. It is known to absolutely change the story of the releasing company (20th Century Fox), putting it on top of the wave of success & bringing the biggest profits that the company ever received. Mr. Lucas in a snap of fingers became the most wanted film director of all time & amassed hundreds of millions of dollars nearly instantly, which made it possible for him to not only shoot two other classic continuations of the franchise in several upcoming years but also start his own production company, which is today known as Lucasfilm. He also gave money to other prominent film directors, who were scarce in funding back then, including worldwide-known Francis Ford Coppola. In 1978 & further on, Mr. Lucas became one of those people who shape the entire filmmaking industry in the US. Later, Lucasfilm released more films of this universe (plus Indiana Jones films), in addition to numerous other TV series, live-action series & merch. Nearly everything the studio did was a commercial success — with minor exceptions, such as ‘Strange Magic’ (the animated film of 2015, which only collected $13 million at the box office against the production budget of $100 million).
Films & other media
Above, we told you a lot about the original film of 1977, which brightly paved the way to everything we know today in the considered universe. There exist:
• 3*3 films in the mainline
• 4 future films that are in production as of 2023
• 3 spin-offs
• TV series: 8 animated series, 8 micro-series, also animated, 4 live-action series & 1 game show
• 3 film specials
• Print media: novels, books, comic books
• Audio singles & novels
• Radio shows
• Video games, some portion of which we have on our freely playable website
• Themed parks of attractions
• Multimedia products
• A huge line of merch, including several massively famous LEGO toy lines (there are over 10,000 names in all merch kinds)
• Fan works
• Academia (a circle of people who study this epic space opera universe on an academic basis, just like people study disciplines in universities).
As our reader can see, the universe of this oeuvre today is super massive, the same as the cultural impact on several generations of people. It is virtually impossible today to find a person aged 5-100, who would not have a clue what Star Wars are. Even walking down the street, one can unintentionally see something that can be referred to or attributed to this universe, would it be something from a glass case of a store, a toy, a book, a piece of merch, or a poster. Lightsabers & blasters would be only two examples of something that’s super memorable in the franchise. And today everybody knows such notions & names as Jedi, Darth Vader, Death Star, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Skywalker, Han Solo, Yoda, stormtrooper, Mandalorian, Tatooine, Dagobah, Imperial trooper transport, Jabba the Hutt, landspeeder, sandcrawler, droid, C-3PO, R2-D2 & many others. By the way, did you know that the somewhat changed image of R2-D2 is the official logo of the phone operating system Android? This little smart robot gave a very massive inspiration to the creators of this OS with his wit, wisdom, ability to access the Internet for retrieving various kinds of information & many other traits, which found the implementation in the OS as we know it today. Even his general name — droid — is a basis for ‘Android’ because ‘droid’ is actually a shortening from ‘android’.
If we talk about all the original 9 films, which are considered classics & the core of everything rest that’s in the universe, we will meet 3 different sets of actors, who depict protagonists & antagonists. Some of them have occasional appearances in all films of the saga — most notable of these are the characters of Luke Skywalker & Han Solo, who are depicted by the same actors. The films of this franchise, in addition to the main initial cast, also opened to the world the names & faces of:
• Natalie Portman
• Hayden Christensen
• Ian McDiarmid
• Adam Driver
• Daisy Ridley
• John Boyega
• Alden Ehrenreich
• Felicity Jones
• Diego Luna.
Some other actors who were involved in the shooting were well known to viewers already, for instance, Ewan McGregor, Oscar Isaac, or Woody Harrelson. There are also a lot of other supporting characters & their names, but we’re sure that you can find them if you search for corresponding information on the Internet.
The destinies & careers of actors depicted in films were different. Some of them are thriving today, having appeared in multiple other works; some of them have already died due to age or health issues & others ceased their careers or gone downhill.
Basically, millions of people know original cast members, all of whom became more or less bright stars for longer or briefer time periods, playing their roles of Jedi, Sith, princesses, warriors, rebels, smugglers & other characters. But not too many people actually know another dude — Warwick Davis, although they definitely have seen him not only here but also in a multitude of other films, where he is featured in live-action (not wearing a full-body costume that coves him completely or giving only his voice). Why we’ve decided to mention this guy here? Well, because — knowingly or not — you have seen him in such a large number of other films that we’ve decided that the omission of mentioning him here would be unforgivable. So let us tell our reader where else he starred in addition to this space opera. Here you go: ‘Labyrinth’ (1986), ‘Willow’, in all ‘Leprechaun’ movies with him as the main star, ‘Snow White’, in all 8 films of ‘Harry Potter’ (as short-heightened Professor Filius Flitwick), ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’, ‘Jack the Giant Slayer’, ‘Maleficent 2’ & many others, including lots of television appearances. What a versatile actor, don’t you think? He outran many other main stars of the franchise with a number of his notable works.
Games based on the considered theme
The world of respective games today includes over a hundred pieces. That is if to count only official ones! They are made for all sorts of gaming platforms: PC, gaming consoles, VR, AR, Android & iOS phones, tablets, PlayStation, Game Boy, Kinect, Nintendo, Xbox, pinball, table games, etc. There are multiple crossovers with other universes & toy-making companies, like the Sims, Minecraft, Roblox platform, LEGO, Angry Birds & various Disney lines of products.
The first-ever game appeared in 1983 & was an arcade game made for early versions of personal computers, before the era of the Internet & smartphones. Today, though, there are various entertainment pieces available on various websites, including ours, to be playable on all supported devices — this will be interesting to anyone who has online access & free time that he or she is intended to spend with fun & pleasure.
Following the mainline of games of this universe, our website hosts games of action, exploration, puzzles, shooters, chasers & others.
Cultural impact
With the advent of the original film in the late 1970s & all years after that, space opera films were no longer considered ‘weird’ by Hollywood & other studios (which was the thing during the early 1970s before the first film of this franchise was shot & released). On the contrary, the bosses of the industry understood the large potential of the segment & turned their gazes to such films. So, starting with the 1980s & up to this time, space-themed films & TV serials appear on screens with large or moderate success. The antagonist Star Trek especially won from the situation. It was a dying TV series with low budgets & episodes watched only by geeks. But in the late 1980s, Star Trek started to make one film after another, beginning in 1989, which continues until today (although Trek’s franchise was never as successful as the one we’re considering here — many of its films did not even break even at the box office; it is now popular mainly in the US & somewhat in Asia, not in the entire world).
There are numerous space adventure films, which were directly or indirectly inspired by Star Wars, to name a few:
• Alien (which today is also a franchise)
• Toy Story
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Star Trek
• Battlestar Galactica
• The Dark Knight Rises
• Independence Day
• Moon
• Serenity
• Firefly
• Space Balls (Star Wars parody)
• Big Hero 6
• Wall-E
• Interstellar.
That’s only the list of some directly-affected pieces of the oeuvre while in reality there are thousands of others, made in literally every big film studio once in a while.
So, after you know so much about this fabulous space film universe, we encourage you to start playing our themed games on this website & may the force be with you!