Archival photos that show a different side of 'Star Wars'

SF Gate ^ | May the 4th, (be with you) 2026 | Dan Gentile

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All around the world, “Star Wars” nerds are spending Monday celebrating the holiest day in the galaxy: May the Fourth. Stemming from a cheeky pun based on a bit of Jedi jargon (“May the force be with you”), the day has become an excuse to rally around the lore of what very well may be the greatest science-fiction series of all time (no disrespect to the “Star Trek” fans out there).

If there’s a ground zero for the “Star Wars” universe (aside from Tatooine), it’s definitely the Bay Area. George Lucas originally moved here after graduating from film school at the University of Southern California in the 1960s and has since made it the headquarters of his company, basing Lucasfilm in San Rafael (it moved to San Francisco in 2005) and later starting Industrial Light and Magic in San Francisco’s Presidio and building Skywalker Ranch 40 minutes north of the city in Nicasio.

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KEYWORDS: hollywood; movies; starwars

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For all of us Star Wars nerds who lived it in real time.

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[ComputerGuy]

I liked the Star Wars movies - they’re on today.
I never became a Trekkie. I think their uniforms make the guys look like sissies.

[dfwgator]

I root for The Empire.

[KitJ]

Great photo.

Sing out if you watched “Corvette Summer” the next year just because Luke was in it.

(I’m always proud of my copy of the “Star Wars Christmas Special”)

I lost interest in the franchise after Lucas sold it to Disney. Still a fan of the first REAL four movies...

[ComputerGuy]

Me too. There’ll never be another Hut like Pizza.

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I think their uniforms make the guys look like sissies.

The mini-skirts and go-go boots on the women weren't too bad, though.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I saw Corvette Sumer in the theater. Not because Mark Hamel was in it particularly, because it seemed like a decent movie for a couple of 20-year-olds to go see.

[DarrellZero]

Carrie Fisher’s candle burned brightly but briefly.

By the time the 90s arrived bipolarity and drug abuse had taken their toll.

[z3n]

I enjoyed StarTrek a little bit as a kid, mostly as a distraction, but I recently watched a handfull of episodes from the original series (Shatner, Nimoy, etc) and I find that I don’t like it much at all. A lot of the writing has that a very odd feel to it. It’s saturated with a lot of 60’s california ‘new age’ sorta vibe. I don’t mean like full hippie tie-dye hait-ashbury, but more like undertones of all that ESP/bigfoot/ufo question-reality, question-authority, question-norms kinda stuff.

I think the original StarWars stuff holds up a LOT better.

[chud]

Carrie Fisher’s candle burned brightly but briefly.

I remember watching the documentary about her and her mother which came out not long before they both had passed.
Carrie was incredibly funny and charming.
It is sad that drugs and alcohol can get their hooks into someone so deeply.

[BradyLS]

Carrie. Smoking. At her age! But I guess that’s how you get to be a Rebel Princess!

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I remember watching the documentary about her and her mother which came out not long before they both had passed. Carrie was incredibly funny and charming.

Look up the roast that Carrie did on George Lucas at the AFI Life Achievement Award.

I laugh uncontrollably every time I watch it.

[ComputerGuy]

I got home from Vietnam in September 1967. Star Trek was big with my younger siblings. I preferred more cerebral stuff like westerns and the Saturday morning cartoons.

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The sets for Star Trek were just too “Lost in Space” level. I couldn’t suspend my belief that much. Literally cardboard walls.

[dfwgator]

Carrie Fisher’s candle burned brightly but briefly.

Her best role...

[SkyDancer]

The BB movie was/is great. I have the latest updated version I watch every so often.

[SkyDancer]

I don’t know about all those sequels. The original movie should have ended with Darth Vader spinning off into space. Gone, G’bye, that’s it.

[al_c]

It wasn’t my fault!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BradyLS]

I’m the opposite. I find Original Trek the best of all of them and the various shows and movies slowly erode (generally speaking) from there. I love the uniforms, gear, technology, work areas…the whole aesthetic right down to the battleship-grey and blocky lettering of the Enterprise.

Some called it “Hornblower in space” and “Wagon train to the stars” and there’s a lot of that in the original series. But I also think there’s an over-arching “how the straights deal with the weird” that permeates the entire original series that I find compelling to watch. Among all the Treks, it is pretty much on its own as the later shows are too liberal, goofy, and just plain woke for me.

You’re not wrong, though, as general audiences didn’t care for it and NBC cancelled it. Two years later, the infamous “rural purge” began and a lot of popular shows were cancelled to make way for programming that catered to more “urban” and “upscale” viewers.