Star Wars - The Making of the Movie (1980)

The masses can keep their May the 4th celebration but I'll always celebrate May 25th as the real Star Wars day! Today in 1977 is when it all began so I wanted to do a little something to commemorate the 44th anniversary.

 

While I was enacting #BasementPurge2021 a couple months ago, I came across a box with Star Wars books from the 70s/80s. There were old favorites that I read cover to cover I don't know how many times like The Star Wars Album and the Art of books. But there was also the book I'm featuring today which I don't really remember so it was like finding a treasure from 41 years ago.

 

 The Star Wars Album (again, the book, not a record) had a lot of behind the scenes info about how the movie was made and that's what really got me interested in the behind the camera aspect of movies. This particular book is a Step-Up book written for kids that are ready to move beyond beginning reader level so the text may not be that interesting to older readers.

While anything from the original movie era is a treat, I did find a couple of images in this book that I hadn't seen before. That's something I really appreciate!

Like the above image, for example. Brand new to me! If you're an old timer like me, you'll no doubt see lots of images you remember seeing from your childhood, including the infamous Pink Shorts Boom Operator.

In addition to the special effects, the book also talks about some of the full costume characters and the actors inside them, cantina aliens, and the early drafts of the Star Wars that might have been. It wraps up with a summary of the movie.

I'm not a professional digitizer/scanning person. I wanted to preserve the book as best I could so some of the pages will be slightly tilted but I still hope you'll enjoy blasting back to 1980 to read about the making of Star Wars.

Click on the book cover above to check it out.