Star Wars Sequel
Science fiction writer Leigh Brackett, who is battling cancer, turns in her first and only draft of a screenplay simply titled “Star Wars Sequel” (later to be known as The Empire Strikes Back); this early draft includes the notation “Episode II”. Brackett, a golden-age SF writer hired by Lucas to help him generate ideas for the second film, loses her battle with cancer soon afterward, and the screenplay is revamped significantly before shooting, though the finished movie will retain her writing credit.
20th Century Fox files a lawsuit against Hollywood rival Universal Pictures over Universal’s upcoming made-for-TV science fiction saga Battlestar Galactica, which 20th Century Fox contends is a copy of its theatrical smash hit Star Wars. Specificially, the studio behind Star Wars claims that the television series infringes on the script for Star Wars, and requests an injunction to bring production to a halt and keep ABC from airing it. The first decision in the case won’t happen until 1980, by which time Battlestar Galactica will already have ended its TV run.
Still stinging from the business decision to not bid on the Star Wars toy rights, toy maker Mego International is first in line to get the toy license for Walt Disney Studios’ upcoming $20,000,000 science fiction movie The Black Hole, still in pre-production. The license includes action figures and vehicles, and banking on Star Wars levels of popularity, Mego has its products ready to go even before the movie hits theaters in late 1979 (only to see the movie flop in the US).
A California judge sides with 20th Century Fox and Kenner Toys in a million-dollar lawsuit against Hong Kong-based toymaker Arco Industries. At issue in the suit is Arco’s “Spacewar” line of action figures, clearly meant to barely resemble such Star Wars characters as Darth Vader, C-3PO and stormtroopers without actually securing the licensing to do so. Kenner contends that the knock-off toys have been eating into its profits, and Arco is far from the only company to suddenly release generic space figures with designs and sculpts that are suspiciously close to elements of the Star Wars universe.
After nearly a year of George Lucas struggling to revise the script for The Empire Strikes Back after the death of his original co-writer, Leigh Brackett, writer Lawrence Kasdan turns in his revisions for the fourth draft of the movie’s screenplay. Kasdan has been brought on board the Star Wars sequel by Lucas, who is co-producing a movie with Steven Spielberg, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, whose script has also been revised by Kasdan – and at this point, Lucas has yet to read Kasdan’s revisions to the Raiders script.
Heavily promoted and given a prime-time slot on a Friday night in a world starved for more Star Wars, 
Warner Bros. releases the Richard Donner superhero film 
After a tortured development history dating back to aborted early 1970s attempts to relaunch Star Trek on the big screen, Paramount premieres the much-anticipated (and much hyped) 
In contrast to 1977, where no toy licensee had a lock on the right to make Star Wars toys until weeks after the movie’s premiere, Kenner rolls out the first toys for The Empire Strikes Back nearly a month ahead of the movie; kids (and their long-suffering parents) make the first wave of figures an immediate sell-out, despite not knowing anything about the movie’s plotline.
With expectations riding higher than they probably ever will for another sequel in movie history, the first Star Wars sequel, 
Long after Glen A. Larson’s science fiction series Battlestar Galactica has completed its run, a California judge throws out 20th Century Fox’s 1978 lawsuit, which alleged that Galactica was too close to elements of Star Wars for the studio’s comfort. (Also at issue, though not specifically mentioned in the legal proceedings, was Universal Studios’ hiring of such Star Wars personnel as FX guru John Dykstra and illustrator Ralph McQuarrie to work on Galactica.) Universal’s television series is declared different enough in key areas to not be considered a rip-off – small comfort for the studio, since ABC cancelled had the series earlier in the year. Still, Galactica’s legal status will come into play later, as Universal will later reassert and exploit its rights to the basic Battlestar Galactica storyline in the 21st century. This is not the end of the lawsuit, however; much like both franchises, it too is revived in 1983, and Universal is ordered to pay 20th Century Fox a settlement of nearly a quarter million dollars in 1984.
George Lucas completes his handwritten first-draft screenplay for the third Star Wars film, titled 
Produced and co-written by Harve Bennett (
Disney’s 
With producer Harve Bennett now firmly in creative control of the movie franchise, 
HBO premieres the made-for-TV movie 
The big-screen sequel 
The long-awaited, long-delayed feature film adaptation 
Directed by Leonard Nimoy, who also has a hand in development of the story, 
Co-written and directed by William Shatner (whose contract allows him to direct a Star Trek movie since his co-star Leonard Nimoy has done so), 
The first Star Trek film since 1982’s Star Trek II to be directed by Nicholas Meyer, 
A decade after the premiere of the most recent Star Wars theatrical film (and a couple of years into a burgeoning new wave of Star Wars marketing whose most visible components are new original novels, a new action figure line, and popular role playing and computer games), George Lucas quietly announces in Daily Variety that he plans to produce – but not direct – 
After dropping his kids off at school, Star Wars creator George Lucas sits down with a box of pencils and a blank legal pad, and begins writing, in longhand, the script of what will become 
Paramount debuts 
Paramount debuts 
George Lucas films the first footage for the hotly-anticipated 
Receiving more fanfare than any movie preview in the history of cinema, the first teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace premieres nationwide, appearing before the Pixar computer-animated family film A Bug’s Life. So eager are Star Wars fans to catch their first glimpse of the new prequel that many reportedly pay full ticket price to simply watch the preview and leave before the movie with which it’s packaged. Lucasfilm’s official Star Wars web site posts the trailer on the web – though the size of the file and the still-mostly-dial-up shape of the internet at the time makes watching it online a challenge.
Paramount debuts 
Weeks ahead of the movie’s premiere, stores across America open at midnight as the first merchandise from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace goes on sale, ranging from action figures to the movie’s soundtrack (whose track titles offer major spoilers for the film’s storyline). Heavily featured in advance promotion, any items with the face of Darth Maul sell faster than nearly anything else.
Before Episode I‘s theatrical premiere, the pre-production phase of Star Wars Episode II has already begun, with principal photography to commence toward the end of 1999. Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiamid, Ahmed Best, and Anthony Daniels are all slated to reprise their roles, though it will be necessary to recast Anakin Skywalker, since the second film will take place at least a decade after the events of The Phantom Menace.