Created by George Lucas, founder of LucasArts and LucasFilm, Star Wars has to be one of the most famous film franchises in history. I can honestly say that these films are very similar to Disney in terms of popularity and audience (wide audience, huge fame, never forgotten) and will continue making money for a rather long time due to this. The first film was created in 1977 (now retitled Star Wars IV: A New Hope) and is relevant to the way animation was being used as it was one of the first, well the third actually, films to use 3D wireframe animation.
The 3D wireframe animation technique was the height of technology and was used in such scenes (in the first, original Star Wars film) as the Death Star plans, the Millenium Falcon spacecraft and the targeting computers in the X-Wings. The film "Futureworld" was the first to 3D wireframe animation shortly followed by University of Utah graduates who created a short animation of "A Computer Animated Hand" in 1971.
In close relation with the animation industry, LucasFilm was bought out by The Walt Disney Company in 2012 for a whopping $4.05 billion! It was later to announce that they would create three more additions for the Star Wars franchise with Star Wars VII to be released some time in 2015. I wasn't too happy about Disney purchasing LucasFilm personally and I remember there was a huge divide between the people who were all for this and the people, myself, that thought it was a genuine crime against the film and animation industry! I have this bitter opinion as I worry that the style of the Star Wars characters will change completely and be 100% "Disneyfied" if you like thus ruining the seriousness of the franchise.
In popular culture, many video games and merchandise have arisen and enjoyed great success from Star Wars. Angry Birds have recently done some brilliant adaptations of the film by creating short comics, cutscenes and primarily games from the films.
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