Star Wars

Star Wars, space opera film series that became one of the most successful and influential franchises in motion picture history. Begun in the 1970s and ’80s and resuscitated at the turn of the 21st century, the Star Wars films continually advanced the field of motion picture special effects and developed into an enormously lucrative merchandising industry.

The film series was expanded into other media, including television series, video games, novels, comic books, theme park attractions and themed areas, resulting in an all-encompassing fictional universe. In 2012, Lucas sold his company to Disney, and in 2014, most existing spin-off media was made non-canon and rebranded as “Star Wars Legends“.

The episodic ‘Skywalker saga’ and the TV series The Clone Wars (2008–2014) define the canon, along with most other works released after April 2014, though a few Legends-universe media are still released, and some Legends characters are sometimes re-introduced into the canon, for example the titular character from Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy of novels.

The franchise holds a Guinness World Records title for the “Most successful film merchandising franchise.” In 2018, the total value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at US$65 billion, and it is currently the fifth-highest-grossing media franchise of all-time.