Q&As About 'Star Wars': Is 'Star Wars' Based on a Comic Book?
© 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corp. Recently, someone asked this question on Quora: Is Star Wars based on a comic book? I, of course, replied: What? Holy Mother of Skywalker, of course not. Star Wars was not based on an eponymous pre-existing literary work that a 30-something George Lucas happened to come across at a used book store whilst trying to come up with a follow-up film to his 1973 hit American Grafitti. Rather, Star Wars as we know and love it (?) was created by Lucas himself, starting in 1971 with some early (and bizarre) story ideas for a space-fantasy film that would be the antithesis to his dystopian (and unsuccessful) sci-fi film THX-1138, which his friend Francis Ford Coppola produced and Warner Bros. released that same year. Considering how large a shadow Star Wars casts upon modern pop culture over 40 years after the original movie premiered on May 25, 1977, it’s hard to believe that Lucas’s o...