The Story of Star Wars
Encyclopedia
The Story Of Star Wars was a 1977 record album presenting an abridged version of the events depicted in the film Star Wars
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...

, using dialogue and sound effects from the original film. The recording was produced by George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...

 and Alan Livingston, and was narrated by Roscoe Lee Browne
Roscoe Lee Browne
Roscoe Lee Browne was an American actor and director, known for his rich voice and dignified bearing.-Biography:Browne was the fourth son of a Baptist minister, Sylvanus S. Browne, and his wife Lovie...

. The script was adapted by E. Jack Kaplan and Cheryl Gard.

The original film became a hit in the days before home video, so for many fans, this album was the closest to owning a copy of the film they could revisit whenever they wanted. The album was also released on compact cassette
Compact Cassette
The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...

, 8-track tape, and even 4-track reel-to-reel audio tape. It was a commercial success and achieved Gold Record status. The sequel films, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, saw a similar record release.

VideoNow & DVD

In 2004, the title was used again for a three disc set produced and released for the VideoNow
VideoNow
The VideoNow is a personal video player distributed by Hasbro through its Tiger Electronics subsidiary. It is designed for children and operates using unusually sized 4" PVD Discs. The discs allow for about 30 minutes of video, so they are well suited for children's television shows. Video...

 Color personal video player. The first two discs are an overview of the first five Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

films released: The Story of Luke Skywalker (Episodes IV, V & VI) and The Story of Anakin Skywalker (Episodes I & II). These two features were hosted by the droids R2-D2
R2-D2
R2-D2 , is a character in the Star Wars universe. An astromech droid, R2-D2 is a major character throughout all six Star Wars films. Along with his droid companion C-3PO, he joins or supports Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Obi-Wan Kenobi in various points in the saga...

 and C-3PO
C-3PO
C-3PO is a robot character from the Star Wars universe who appears in both the original Star Wars films and the prequel trilogy. He is also a major character in the television show Droids, and appears frequently in the series' "Expanded Universe" of novels, comic books, and video games...

 utilizing pre-existing footage and new voiceover work. They contained no footage from Revenge of the Sith, nor did they have the changes contained in the 2004 DVD Special Edition releases. The third disc was Entitled Behind the Scenes and featured the following:
  • Episode I - Fights, a featurette on Lightsaber Duels in The Phantom Menace
  • Episode II - Action, a featurette on action sequences in Attack of the Clones
  • Episode III - General Grievous, a featurette on the creation of the Droid General in Revenge of the Sith
  • Making the Game, a featurette on the creation of the Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith video game
  • Revenge of the Sith, featurette on the nature of the Sith
  • An Original Trilogy DVD commercial
  • An Episode I DVD commercial
  • An Episode II DVD commercial
  • A Yoda Electronic Lightsaber commercial


In 2005, Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm Limited is an American film production company founded by George Lucas in 1971, based in San Francisco, California. Lucas is the company's current chairman and CEO, and Micheline Chau is the president and COO....

 repackaged the content from the first two VideoNow discs for a bonus DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 that was included in a special 2-pack with the Revenge of the Sith DVD at Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...

 stores. The DVD was presented in full screen
Full screen
A fullscreen image or video occupies the screen entirely.* A video display having an aspect ratio of 4:3 * In film, the use of pan and scan, image cropping, or windowboxing to fit widescreen content into a display with aspect ratio of 4:3...

 with Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...

 2.0 sound and runs 1 hour in total. The sticker on the cover describes it as "R2-D2 and C-3P0's chronicles of Luke
Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the original film trilogy of the Star Wars franchise, where he is portrayed by Mark Hamill. He is introduced in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, in which he is forced to leave home, and finds himself apprenticed to the Jedi master...

 and Anakin Skywalker".

That same year, the VideoNow release was re-issued with new packaging and disc artwork, proclaiming "With Updated Episode III Footage". Other changes included the numbering of the discs themselves (which the first release lacked).
In addition to these cosmetic changes, the third disc was re-worked. The Fights, Action and Revenge of the Sith featurettes were retained, as was the Episode I DVD commercial. In the place of the other material was the following:
  • Revenge of the Sith "Saga" trailer
  • Revenge of the Sith "Dark Side" trailer
  • A different Episode II DVD commercial
  • PVD game playable on the VideoNow XP.
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