“A New Hope”, 1977

Originally titled just “Star Wars”, the first film takes place “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away” where the oppressive Galactic Empire controls almost every planet in the galaxy with its white-armored “stormtroopers.” The main character, orphan Luke Skywalker, wants to leave his home planet to join the Rebel Alliance to fight the Empire.

Luke follows two droids (robots) that he bought as they try to deliver a help message from Princess Leia (a friend of the rebels) to an old man, an ex-Jedi Knight who used The Force to fight evil in the galaxy. The group hires a smuggler named Han Solo and his large, furry Wookiee friend Chewbacca to take them to Leia’s home planet.

Meanwhile, the Empire is nearly done building their giant space station the Death Star, which has a laser powerful enough to destroy a planet. Princess Leia is held captive on the Death Star as it destroys her home planet under the orders of the Darth Vader, a Sith (historical enemies of the Jedi). Luke, the old man, the pilots and the droids arrive in the planet’s wreckage to be captured by the Death Star, where Han and Luke rescue Leia and the old man finds a way to for the group to escape before being killed in a fight with Darth Vader.

The group flees to the Rebel Alliance’s base to prepare for a desperate attack on the Death Star. In the climactic battle, Luke exploits a weakness in the Death Star to destroy it as he begins to discover his own Jedi powers. However, Darth Vader escapes the wreckage, and continues to lead the Empire.

“The Empire Strikes Back”, 1980

The next film begins with an Empire attack led by Darth Vader on the Rebel base on winter planet Hoth. The Empire captures the base, but most of the Rebel forces escape. Luke leaves Hoth to train with an old Jedi Master on the swamp planet Dagobah, while Han travels with Chewbacca and Leia to hide with an old friend in the Cloud City. The friend betrays Han and Darth Vader captures the three rebels, encasing Han in a block of carbonite and giving him as a gift to a friend of the Empire.

Luke leaves his training early to save his friends and confront Darth Vader. At the end of the fight, Vader reveals that he is Luke’s father, and Luke falls from the platform they were fighting on but is rescued by the rebel group.

“The Return of the Jedi”, 1983

The third and final film of the original trilogy opens as Chewbacca, Luke and Leia rescue Han. The reunited group then travels to Endor where the Empire is building a second Death Star. On Endor, the rebels fight the Empire while Luke confronts Vader and the Emperor (a Sith) on the Death Star, learning that Leia is his sister. There, Luke resists becoming a Sith, and Vader helps him defeat the emperor by sacrificing himself. Luke flees the Death Star as his father dies. The friend who betrayed the rebels in Cloud City leads the mission to destroy the new Death Star, and both he and Luke make a narrow escape. As the film ends, the Rebel Alliance celebrates on Endor, knowing that the Empire is critically weakened with its leader and strongest weapon gone.

Three more movies form a prequel trilogy: “The Phantom Menace” (1999), “Attack of the Clones” (2002), and “Revenge of the Sith” (2005). Following Anakin Skywalker on his path to becoming Darth Vader, the prequels were generally met with bad reviews and criticized for their winding plots and irrelevance to the original trilogy. Little is known about the upcoming movie, but it has been revealed that it will take place 30 years after the Battle of Endor.