Behind-the-scenes pics from all 9 mainline Star Wars movies

From The Phantom Menace to The Empire Strikes Back to The Rise of Skywalker, these images take you behind the scenes of all nine mainline Star Wars movies.

The original three Star Wars movies are cinema classics. The prequel films directed by George Lucas in the late ’90s and early ’00s have legions of fans, and the sequel trilogy released over the last several years gave the series a new lease on life. Together, these nine films form what producers have dubbed “the Skywalker Saga,” covering everything from the transformation of Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader through to the final defeat of Emperor Palpatine decades later.

Where does the Star Wars franchise go next? To TV, mostly. But while we wait for that tree to bear fruit, let’s go behind the scenes of the nine mainline movies released over the past 44 years and look at them in a different way, beginning with the movie that started it all…

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)

This was the only movie of the original trilogy that George Lucas directed personally. Here he is with Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi):

"Alec Guinness and George Lucas, 1976 from StarWars"

Ser Alec Guinness poses with on-set bestie R2-D2:

Behind the scenes of the famous “Han shot first” scene, Greedo takes a smoke break:

You need a lot of takes to make a Star War:

"Episode 4: A New Hope – Behind The Scenes (Just Run) from StarWars"

Lucas, Grand Moff Tarkin, Princess Leia and a helmet-less Darth Vader rehearse a key scene:

Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher chat between takes:

"Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher chatting in the making of "A New Hope" from StarWars"

“Bring me the head of Chewbacca.”

Mark Hamill fills us in on the final scene of the movie:

Finally, the gang rocks out on the Millennium Falcon:

Or maybe it’s just Hamill, whichever.