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Thursday 24th of May 2007 02:39:19 AM

Even though the 'Star Wars' films have appealed to audiences for over thirty years, these films owe part of their success to T-Shirts, action figures, and other promotional tie-ins that fans crave. It is almost impossible these days to find a film that isn't tied into one promotional item or another.

In 1977, Kenner partnered with George Lucas to produce action figures that resemble characters from his first 'Star Wars' movie. By the end of the year, Kenner was selling empty boxes that contained vouchers because they had sold out of all their stock. This kind of fan frenzy is what makes movies like 'Star Wars' so popular. Today, people are still buying 'Star Wars' T-Shirts, empty boxes, and other items that are considered valuable collectibles.

"The ultimate success for a blockbuster is to achieve the legendary status of an 'event movie', one that imposes itself on our lives with saturation promotion and becomes for a time almost impossible to ignore," said Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska, in their book Science Fiction Cinema: From Outerspace to Cyberspace.

This may be truer today than ever. Movies like 'Shrek', 'Spiderman', and 'Pirates of the Caribbean' all have T-Shirts, action figures, and other items or promotional campaigns attached to them. While the amount of items sold doesn't necessarily mean that the movies are any good, it does mean that the movies will probably do well at the box office.

Even thirty years after its release, fans of 'Star Wars' are still collecting these items, which means that someday, 'Spiderman' T-Shirts and others will also become a valuable collectible.

(c)Dominic Morel, www.sxc.hu