The Big Kahuna of Star Wars anniversaries... was yesterday. I was not happy to have missed the opportunity to post an entry on May 25th, but sometimes life gets in the way. It doesn't mean we can't celebrate! That's not to say we don't celebrate Star Wars every day here on starwars.com

In fact, dates are funny things, especially as they delve deeper and deeper into the past. May 25th officially marks the release of both the original Star Wars, in 1977, as well as the third installment of the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi, in 1983. However, on that fateful Wednesday in 1977, Star Wars was only seen in 32 locations in the USA, and within the following few days, it expanded to 11 more theaters for a total of 43 for that opening weekend. It wasn't until June 15, 1977 that Star Wars was widely released in the US, and it continually expanded throughout the summer. So for me, I would have to say that my own anniversary with Star Wars is in fact on June 15, 1977 since I did not live in any of the locations of the limited release.

The international release of Star Wars didn't happen until the fall of 1977, and later the film had subsequent re-releases in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1997. The re-release on April 10, 1981 marks the first time the film was shown with the addendum to the title "Episode IV: A New Hope". So really, we can twist the statistics to work for us in any way we want and one could say that the 28th anniversary of "A New Hope" was this past April 10th

Return of the Jedi (which sadly has a very slim selection of blog pictures here...), which famously ran with the working title "Revenge of the Jedi" virtually up until just before it's release (... and not even a "Revenge of the Jedi" poster to be found anywhere in the pictures!) had actually been set to release on May 27, 1983, but was pushed to May 25th in order to coincide with the release date of the original Star Wars. Interestingly, for both the original and prequel trilogies, the first and last movie of each share the same anniversary date. The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith share May 19th as their official release dates.

I'm going to deviate from the format of the previous anniversary entries a little and instead of posting factoids here I wanted to point to a little project I plan to embark upon - Reading the 6 early drafts of Star Wars dating from 1974 - 1977. I've read some of these already throughout the years (including using the first 1974 draft as a reference in a film theory class paper), in bits and pieces, but I think it will be interesting to read through all of these available scripts as though they were one book. Even though this project seems to be primarily centered around the original Star Wars, and this post is also celebrating ROTJ, parts of these early draft scripts do contain some material that was cut from the original and later used to expand into both TESB and ROTJ. This is what Lucas claims to be the foundation which gave birth to the entire saga of films in the serial style he hoped to create.

Thanks to Club Jade for the inspiration to do this in a recent post that pointed to this blog re-post about a similar venture back in 2007 during the 30th anniversary celebrations. It may take me awhile, so I hope no one will be holding their breath waiting for a review (think possible 33rd anniversary blog post). Anyone interested can find links to the 6 main drafts in the above linked blog post, as well as from this handy fan page (also linked to by CJ), which has even more foundational writings.

It should also be noted that May 25th is recognized as Star Wars Day by the Los Angeles City Council (as opposed to "May the 4th be with you" which is also celebrated as Star Wars Day by many simply for the play on words). LA declared the holiday in 2007 as it was the host location for the 30th anniversary Star Wars Celebration event. I thought it was a tad ironic that the place where Hollywood resides, which was not only shunned by George Lucas, but which shunned Lucas in return, would do such a thing, but stranger things have happened throughout history and especially in Hollywood.

We can't just end this without at least some relevant linky-rinks!

- From Script to DVD's May 25, 1977: A Day Long Remembered was my main reference for the Star Wars release dates, and it's an interesting read, including info on the 70mm releases.

- Check out this super cool article at Starlog (how totally awesome is it that this magazine that I used to get as a kid to follow... Star Wars! is still going strong and accessible on the web!?!) about Patrick Read Johnson and his film '77 (formerly known as 5-25-77), including a brand new trailer! Finally, this thing seems to be coming to a head, and he didn't even have help from Harvey Weinstein!

- In honor of ROTJ, LA Times online posts this video clip of Carrie Fisher walking down memory lane at the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony for George Lucas.

Time to hit the publish button since I'm about to hit 32 and 26 plus two days by EST (also known as the would-be anniversary for ROTJ on May 27)