On May 21, 1980, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back made its theatrical debut. To celebrate the classic film’s landmark 40th anniversary, StarWars.com presents “Empire at 40,” a special series of interviews, editorial features, and listicles.

Seventy matte paintings were created for The Empire Strikes Back by three artists from Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Two of them, Ralph McQuarrie and Michael Pangrazio, were relatively new to the art form. The other, Harrison Ellenshaw, had practically been raised for the task as the son of Walt Disney’s chosen matte painter, Peter Ellenshaw.

Using acrylic and oil paints, some mattes were fragments to complete an existing shot, others were full windows into a galaxy, and quite appropriately, all of them were painted on framed, rectangular glass (a favorite ILM story recounts that shower doors purchased from

Lucasfilm has confirmed new dates for the launch of Star Wars: The High Republic, due to general marketplace delays.

Both Charles Soule’s adult novel Star Wars: The High Republic: Light of the Jedi and Justina Ireland’s middle grade novel Star Wars: The High Republic: A Test of Courage will both now release on January 5, 2021. Claudia Gray’s young adult novel Star Wars: The High Republic: Into the Dark has moved to a new release date of February 2, 2021.

New release dates for Marvel’s Star Wars: The High Republic series and IDW Publishing’s Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures series will be announced at a later time.

Star Wars: The High Republic is set in an era when the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order are at their zenith,

On May 21, 1980, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back made its theatrical debut. To celebrate the classic film’s landmark 40th anniversary, StarWars.com presents “Empire at 40,” a special series of interviews, editorial features, and listicles.

One of the great things about Star Wars is that it inspires endless debates and opinions on a wide array of topics. Best bounty hunter? Most powerful Jedi? Does Salacious Crumb have the best haircut in the saga? In that spirit, StarWars.com presents From a Certain Point of View: a series of point-counterpoints on some of the biggest — and most fun — Star Wars issues. In this installment, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, two StarWars.com writers choose what they believe to be the best scene in the film. 

Yoda’s explanation of the Force is the finest scene,

On May 21, 1980, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back made its theatrical debut. To celebrate the classic film’s landmark 40th anniversary, StarWars.com presents “Empire at 40,” a special series of interviews, editorial features, and listicles.

In May 1977, Star Wars took the world by storm, going on to become the highest-grossing film of all time and garnering several Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. So a sequel was something of a no-brainer, to say the least. And that sequel would be The Empire Strikes Back, which opened on May 21, 1980. Darker and more emotional than Star Wars, Empire also presented another leap in visual spectacle, with more locales and action sequences, and a much bigger scope than its predecessor. Today, 40 years later, fans often cite it as their favorite Star

On May 21, 1980, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back made its theatrical debut. To celebrate the classic film’s landmark 40th anniversary, StarWars.com presents “Empire at 40,” a special series of interviews, editorial features, and listicles.

There is a note of hope in George Lucas’s voice as he considers whether or not Darth Vader’s surprising reveal in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back could have been kept under wraps in the age of the internet.

“I think it might have!” he says. “Because the thing about it is I didn’t tell anybody — anybody — about it. And it wasn’t in any of the scripts. It wasn’t even in the story treatments. I kept that aspect of it secret and I was the only one that knew about it. And it really wasn’t until the

On May 21, 1980, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back made its theatrical debut. To celebrate the classic film’s landmark 40th anniversary, StarWars.com presents “Empire at 40,” a special series of interviews, editorial features, and listicles.

Hello, what have we here?

Why, it’s galaxy of action figures, collectibles, apparel, and more commemorating the 40th anniversary of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back! If you love of Empire, or know someone who does, here are some new and upcoming items you might want to check out — no hyperspace travel required.

Disney-Lucasfilm Press’s Charming A Jedi, You Will Be

Perfect for your Padawans, Preeti Chhibber’s A Jedi, You Will Be is a hilarious and stylized picture book narrated by none other than Yoda, as he teaches the ways of the Force. It releases on October 6, 2020, and you can pre-order