Rarely seen ‘Star Wars’ photos,’ from ‘SNL’ spoofs to concert cameos

All world wide, “Star Wars” nerds are spending Monday celebrating the holiest day within the galaxy: May the Fourth. Stemming from a cheeky pun primarily based on a little bit of Jedi jargon (“May the force be with you”), the day has develop into an excuse to rally across the lore of what very properly could be the biggest science-fiction collection of all time (no disrespect to the “Star Trek” followers on the market).

If there is a floor zero for the “Star Wars” universe (apart from Tatooine), it is undoubtedly the Bay Area. George Lucas initially moved right here after graduating from movie faculty on the University of Southern California within the Nineteen Sixties and has since made it the headquarters of his firm, basing Lucasfilm in San Rafael (it moved to San Francisco in 2005) and later beginning Industrial Light and Magic in San Francisco’s Presidio and constructing Skywalker Ranch 40 minutes north of town in Nicasio.

In the previous, SFGATE has honored May the Fourth by diving into the annals of “Star Wars” historical past, with tales exploring unusual corners of the franchise’s previous, like a seashore photograph shoot in Marin for Rolling Stone in the summertime of 1983; the San Anselmo parade the place Boba Fett was introduced; and the numerous Bay Area landmarks that influenced the collection. We’ve additionally highlighted up to date fan tradition by that includes fashionable droid-makers. And it does not take a pretend vacation to warrant exploring different parts of the franchise, just like the obscure Berkeley study that shaped the ending of the primary movie.

This yr, we determined to dig into the Getty Images archives to current some not often seen images from the historical past of the collection. Scroll down to see all the things from Carrie Fisher joking round with stormtroopers to Darth Vader making a cameo at a Queen concert.