Star Wars Coloring Pages
35 Brand New Star Wars Coloring Pages – Free to Print and Color
Free Printable Star Wars Coloring Pages
The space fantasy film series Star Wars became one of the most successful and influential franchises in motion picture history. Created by George Lucas, the series was begun in the 1970s and ’80s, with more movies added in the late ’90s and in the 21st century. The popularity of the Star Wars films helped fan a lucrative merchandising industry that included clothing, action figures and other toys and collectibles, and several book series.
The first Star Wars film, which was directed by Lucas, was released in 1977, after four years of production. Titled Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope), the movie met with runaway success. Set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” the film centers on Luke Skywalker (played by Mark Hamill), a young man who becomes involved in an interplanetary war between an authoritarian empire and rebel forces. Skywalker and the opportunistic smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford) are tasked with saving
Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) from captivity on a massive space station commanded by the menacing Darth Vader (a character recognizable by his deep mechanically enhanced voice, contributed by James Earl Jones). At the core of the film and the series it initiated are the Jedi Knights—a group of both good and bad warriors who harness and manipulate the Force, a spiritual essence that holds in balance the forces of good and evil—and Skywalker’s quest to join their ranks.
Star Wars won six Academy Awards along with a special-achievement award for accomplishments in sound, and it revolutionized the motion picture industry with its advancements in special effects. Lucas’s effects company, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), designed numerous imaginative alien creatures and mechanical “droids” that inhabited a variety of exotic locales. Elaborate space battles were accomplished with scaled miniatures.
The series continued to make remarkable advancements in the field of special effects into the 21st century. Lucas followed the first Star Wars film with two sequels, Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi (1983). The franchise thrived in the 1980s and ’90s through the release of videos, a substantial merchandise line, and the theatrical re-release of the trilogy in 1997.