In 1976, a group of then-unknown actors and film producers gathered in the Tunisian desert to begin principle photography on a film that would change the world. A year later, Star Wars hit theaters, making its stars—Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher—film icons and its director George Lucas a legend. Four decades later, the art created by a group of Hollywood outsiders remains one of the biggest film franchises in the world.<br /><br />Star Wars is cultural empire, and those fans blown away by that title scroll in 1977 remain its loyal subjects. Here, you can see some incredible behind-the-scenes photos from the set of those original films pulled from The Star Wars Archives, a beautiful new book of photography in which George Lucas "guides us through the original trilogy like never before, recounting the inspirations, experiences, and stories that created a modern monomyth. Complete with script pages, concept art, storyboards, on-set photography, and more." The book is due out from Taschen on Dec. 15.
