Star Wars Fans Gather for the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the Original Star Wars Movie

I’m a Star Wars fan. Not a fanatic (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but a fan, and my resident movie reviewer and wife, known as Queen B here in the Imaging Buffet, is a super Star Wars fan (OK, maybe a fanatic-not that there’s anything wrong with that). We both stood on lines with our families in 1977 to watch Star Wars, later named “Episode IV – A New Hope,” when we were about 8 years old. 20 years later, in 1997, we enjoyed it together on the big screen.

The homepage for the 30th Anniversary “Celebration IV” event. Apparantly, even Elvis impersonators love Star Wars.

According to StarWars.com, “Star Wars opened on May 25, 1977, on just 32 theater screens in North America, including Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard,” and “To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Gen Con LLC will throw the largest party ever for fans of the saga, taking over the entire Los Angeles Convention Center in May 2007 for five days [May 24 (for Official Star Wars Fan Club members only), and May 25-May 28 (general public)] filled with live entertainment, celebrities from all six movies, special film and video presentations, an exhibit of movie props and costumes, exclusive merchandise sold at a 24-hour-a-day store, pop culture tributes, immersive events, costume contests, and scores of additional activities.

Star Wars is very important to many photographers and video professionals because it combined a powerful and compelling story with extraordinary visual effects. It also helped to fuel the growth of George Lucas’ ILM (Industrial Light and Magic), which was founded to do the first Star Wars film 30 years ago. Photoshop and ILM are linked as well. John Knoll is visual effects supervisor at ILM and together with his brother, Thomas Knoll, they deveoped Photoshop. Here is a great short video interview with John Knoll about his background and the early days of Photoshop. Other related and interesting videos can be found on that page’s “Related Content” section. For a much more detailed history of Photoshop, see this article on PhotoshopNews.com.

Though I really didn’t recognize the differences, every time my wife saw a reference to the “enhanced” original 3 Star Wars trilogy movies (Episodes IV, V, and VI), she would shake her head and ask “Why did George Lucas do that to my movies?” That’s also why three VHS copies of the original trilogy always had a special place in our home. And somehow, we’ve managed to buy Episode 4, 5 and 6 four times! This has something to do with the fact that my wife had to have the original Ewok song at the end of Return of the Jedi (Ewoks are those cute furry creatures from the forest moon of Endor). My guess is that some folks have bought Episode 4 as many as 6 or even 7 times based on the number of times it has been released on different formats and with different features.

There’s no question that Star Wars has had an effect on the world of digital imaging, science and technology. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend Celebration IV, but I want to congratulate George Lucus and everyone involved in the creation of the Star Wars saga for 30 years of incredible movie making. And may the Force Be With You, 30th Anniversary Attendees!