Star Wars premiered on this day in 1977

On May 25, 1977. the first Star Wars film was released. The movie starring Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guiness, and Harrison Ford was a commercial success and spawned what became a cultural movement.

Prior to the release of Star Wars, which has since been retitled 'Star Wars : Episode IV: A New Hope' science fiction was a niche market for Hollywood. There were more crime movies and westerns than sci-fi movies. That all changed with the box office of Star Wars.

The movie is ostensibly about two androids (R2D2 and C3PO) who are dropped on a desert world seeking a retired mercenary to pass on plans for a new space station with the power to destroy entire planets. Along the way the duo find not just the aged warrior (Obi Wan Kenobi), but also a young farm boy who is a gifted pilot (Luke Skywalker), a smuggler (Han Solo), and his co-pilot (Chewbacca) a space alien who looks like a seven foot man in a Bigfoot suit.

The six of them join forces to deliver the plans for the space station to the rebels who are trying to overthrow the evil galactic Empire – led by Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine (who we do not see in this film). Along the way Kenobi tells the others about the lost history of the Jedi Knights -of which he and Vader are the last in the galaxy. They get sidetracked and go onboard the space station they were supposed to be delivering intelligence about. There they rescue the Princess whose idea it was to give the plans to the androids and Kenobi fights Vader with light sabers. The team – minus Kenobi – then fly away to the rebel base not knowing that Vader had placed a tracking device onboard their ship revealing the location of the secret base to the Empire. The movie concludes with dog fighting space planes in a scene reminiscent of World War 1 dogfights as rebel pilots led by Skywalker attempt to destroy the space station before it can destroy the planet with the rebel base.

The movie is campy, hokey, and a little bit silly with costumed characters, bad guys in armor that doesn't stop them from getting killed in numbers, monsters, gun fights, and dog fighting fighters in space. Around all of this is the incredible score by John Williams. Arguably the most impactful classical music of the last 50 years has been movie scores that Williams crafted for the 11 Star Wars films. Somehow it all worked though.

Hollywood followed the first film with Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and then 'Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi. The film making genius – George Lucas – who dreamed all of this up and then had to invent dozens of special effects techniques to make these movies – became a movie making icon.

Lucas eventually followed the first three films with a prequel of three films that tells the story about how Obi Wan and Vader/Anakin first met and how Anakin turned from good to evil. While not as well received by the critics and fans as the first trilogy, Episodes I, II, and III still made a fortune.

Lucas then sold the intellectual and movie rights to Disney – who has incorporated the Star War universe into their theme parks and used the stories to anchor its streaming service.

Two more prequel movies: 'Star Wars: Rogue One' and the less successful 'Solo' followed. Then Disney made a new trilogy about the forces of light and darkness battling again 30 years after events of Episode VI - The Return of the Jedi, bringing back most of the original cast members who were not killed off in the previous three films. Disney has also made cartoon and live action cable/streaming TV series about the Star Wars universe including: 'The Clone Wars,' 'Star Wars: Rebels', 'The Bad Batch,' 'The Mandalorian,' 'Ahsoka,' 'Boba Fette,' 'Acolyte,' 'Skeleton Crew' and 'Andor. The new show joined the fifty+ plus books, some of which Disney considers canon and some they do not.

May 25 is also referred to by some as the Geek Pride Day holiday.