Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures) George Lucas’s “Star Wars” is one of the most successful film franchises in history. His original film, “Star Wars: A New Hope,” was released in 1977 as an auteur project. Forty years later, Lucas’s original vision has spawned countless numbers of comic books, novels, video games — and of course — sequels and other TV and film projects that would help to define the very idea of a Hollywood blockbuster film and collectively be worth billions of dollars. The newest installment in the “Star Wars” film franchise is “The Last Jedi.” Debuting last Thursday in the United States, it has already broken box office records.