Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise, created by George Lucas and centered around a film series that began with the eponymous 1977 movie. The saga quickly became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. The first film was followed by two successful sequels, "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) and "Return of the Jedi" (1983); these three films constitute the original "Star Wars" trilogy. A prequel trilogy was released between 1999 and 2005, albeit to mixed reactions from critics and fans. Finally, a sequel trilogy to conclude the nine-episode saga began in 2015 with "". The first eight
Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game later became the "Star Wars" expanded universe, and its sourcebooks are still frequently cited by "Star Wars" fans as reference material. Lucasfilm considered the West End Games' "Star Wars" sourcebooks so authoritative that when Timothy Zahn was hired to write what became the "Thrawn" trilogy, he was sent a box of West End Games "Star Wars" books and directed to base his novel on the background material presented within. Many of the first uses of "Star Wars" alien names (such as the Twi'lek, Rodian, and Quarren) appeared for the first time in WEG's "Star Wars" books. Even after Disney's reboot