Star Wars is an American film series created by George Lucas. It is one of the few "space opera" composed of three trilogies that generated a media franchise including books, television series, video games and comics.
The first film was released in theaters in 1977 under the title Star Wars (subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981), produced by 20th Century Fox. It became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon to which was followed by two sequels, released at three-year intervals, Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back released in 1980 and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi released in 1983.
Sixteen years after the release of the final film of the first trilogy, in 1999 comes out in theaters the first film of the new trilogy, a prequel called Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, followed in 2002 by Star Wars : Episode II - Attack of the Clones, and in 2005 from Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.
In 2012, the Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for $ 4.06 billion and announced that it would produce three new films, the first released for the end of 2015 entitled, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.