“How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise” by Chris Taylor

 

488 pages, Basic Books, ISBN-13: 978-0465089987

After having suffered through the lamentable Star Wars: The Triumph of Nerd Culture by Josef Benson (reviewed on July 25^th, 2025), I was in need of another, more reliable history of one of the world’s most successful and beloved – and, it must be said, reviled – pieces of pop-culture ever to be made. And so, having found How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise by Chris Taylor while walking the shelves of my library, I took another plunge into the franchise that informed so much of my childhood, alongside Transformers and ever-present LEGOs. And am I ever glad that I did, for Taylor does in fact what Benson sought to do but only in theory: explain how and why Star Wars came into being, how it survived and thrived and, even, how it failed.

Taylor has written as complete a history of this pillar of nerdom as can be, resembling as it does one of those display cases that Superfans stuff with their madcap collection of merch in which the truly collectable, keepable stuff jostles with the crap that was churned out on the cheap. Thus, the book has iconic moments – like at the beginning, where he discovers the Navajo’s Diné-dubbed version of Star Wars – and there are parts that fade quickly from thought. All are treated as importantly as the next, even if they necessarily aren’t. This discovery is just one of many involving this franchise that fans have embraced like few others: the fan-led 501^st Legion, “Vader’s Fist”; the builders of home Astromechs; the independent Orders of Jedi Knighthood; the Darth Vader impersonators…all are represented and even celebrated.

Despite Taylor’s admitted love for Star Wars, he rarely flinches from showing how badly written (and occasionally executed) the many properties are, especially the execrable prequels (the book was released the year before the second execrable trilogy began). His chapter on denial, anger, rewriting and other responses to these badly done movies is perhaps the best part of the book, showing how different fans try to excuse, come to grips or ignore them altogether. He doesn’t let his love of the franchise get in the way of reality, and let’s face it: that’s the best fandom of all, a critical fandom that includes reality right in with the adoration. As much as Lucas laments these fans and their criticism of his work, most of it comes from a place of love, as they care deeply for a product that has profoundly affected and touched them.

Taylor doesn’t just focus on the movies – the crazy, chancy world of movie production where anything at all can get you greenlit or back-burnered – but also on all of the novels, television series, cosplayers and so on. But Taylor’s description of the increasingly-driven Lucas to write more Star Wars simply to earn money in order to have more control over his own work which in turn caused him ever-greater stress which in turn affected the quality of the work because he was increasingly the only one whom he trusted to be in control…explains those crappy prequels. Reading Lucas say repeatedly that he is done with Star Wars and just wants to make small, independent, personal movies soon becomes just plain sad, as the man can’t quit his biggest money-maker and the source of all his supposed dreams.

How Star Wars Conquered the Universe is well-written, objective, respectful of the fandom and history yet still critical when it needs to be. This book is not just for fans but for anyone wanting to know the history of this brilliant and maddening pop-culture phenomenon and how and why it has endured for so long, often in spite of itself.