Call it a pet project, a fanatical affliction, or an unwavering desire to document the pre-history of the Star Wars saga, but for years I've done my best to gather each and every magazine article, newspaper clipping or trade mention lending a scrap of coverage to Star Wars before its release on May 25, 1977.
I haven't figured out why this aspect of Star Wars history has so captivated me, although it probably has something to do with a wish to experience the world right before the film that changed everything -- kind of a calm-before-the-storm sorta thing. The fact that relatively little coverage was given to Star Wars in the few years before its release is also strangely fascinating, in a "How could they not know?" kinda way.
What follows is the first of a three part series, beginning with a few pieces of press coverage given to Star Wars while the story was still in development in 1974-75. It's interesting to see how Lucas thought of The Star Wars at this point in time, which was being labeled as a Flash Gordon/2001/James Bond kind of movie. Also surprising is how early some of these mentions came -- for most, 1976 was the year that really started the Star Wars promotional machine, but obviously, some outreach was occurring in the years prior. The 1975 Newsweek mention was probably the biggest surprise.
There are likely several more instances of Star Wars coverage not listed here, but I'll leave it to you, the readers, to drop me those leads in the comments section below. Be sure to click the thumbnails to read sections of the articles within.
March, 1974
Fall, 1975
Fall, 1975
Additional mentions or related coverage not depicted:
- October 7, 1973: The New York Times prints an interview with Lucas about American Graffiti in which he briefly mentions The Star Wars
- Spring, 1974: Lucas interviewed in Film Quarterly (Vol 27, #3), in which The Star Wars is briefly mentioned: "The film I'm writing now, The Star Wars, has been turned down by a couple of studios already, but now we're finally getting a deal because they say, 'Oh, he's had a hit movie. We don't really know about the idea, but he's a hot director, so let's do it.' They don't do it on the basis of the material; they do it on the kind of deal they can make, because most of the people at the studios are former agents, and all they know are deals. They're like used-car dealers."
- Spring, 1974: Not a Star Wars reference, but in many early interviews Mark Hamill often referenced an issue of the Ray Harryhausen fanzine FXRH as proof of his love for science fiction. In the fourth issue (the acronym translates to "Special Visual Effects created by Ray Harryhausen"), Hamill co-authored an interview with Kerwin Matthews, the actor who played Sinbad in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
Look for Part II (1976) here, and Part III (early 1977) here.
Information contained in this and the forthcoming related stories were culled from many sources, first and foremost from the author's collection, collector Guy Harrison, and two expansive Star Wars bibliographies compiled by fans Bob Miller and Lita Sheldon during the late 1980s.
