MJ Simpson writes:

In 1999, shortly before the release of The Phantom Menace, I was asked by SFX magazine to write a feature on the original release of Star Wars. I spent a day in the library of the British Film Institute checking for contemporary coverage in both trade papers and fan magazines, and I uncovered some fascinating details as well as busting a few myths. Here is the feature as it appeared in SFX:

An excerpt:

Very simply, it is impossible to overstate the importance of Star Wars in the history of cinema, in exactly the same way that it is impossible to overstate the importance of the Beatles in popular music. Like the Fab Four, Lucas' film was not only a watershed in its own medium, but sent ripples throughout the whole of popular culture which still lap on the shore to this day. Just as you can instantly tell if a record was made before or after the Beatles, you can instantly date any film (not just SF) to pre- or post-Star Wars. And in the same way that Decca famously turned down those lovable moptops (Doh!), so Universal passed on the chance to make George Lucas' second film (Do-oh!!!). Fortunately, Alan Ladd Jr at 20th Century Fox had the perspicacity to see something in Lucas' idea and gave him the backing he needed - and the rest, as they say, is history.

Now, it is not strictly true to say that nobody expected Star Wars to be a hit. Admittedly, when the film opened on 25th May 1977, George Lucas was in a diner across the street from the Chinese Theatre and wondered what the long queue was for (he probably assumed it was for Rocky, Annie Hall, or the Mohammed Ali biopic The Greatest). He and his wife were planning to be in Hawaii when the film opened and had forgotten that the actual premiere was on the Wednesday. But let's face it: Lucas would have had an ego the size of the Death Star if he had thought, "I bet they're going to see my film."

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