For years there was a rumor that this was originally written as a radio drama hence its episodic structure and prologue. This is not true although George Lucas was more than happy to let National Public Radio (NPR) in the U.S. do a radio adaptation of it when they approached him in 1980. He sold them the radio broadcast rights (including using the famous theme music and audio effects) for the token sum of $1. NPR then realized that it had been over twenty years since a movie script had last been adapted for radio broadcast in the U.S. (something that was commonplace in the 1930s & 40s and into the 50s) and had no idea how to do it. They asked the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who had years of experience of making radio dramas (and continue to do so to this day) for their help in exchange for the UK broadcast rights. The BBC sent over a small team, including future movie director John Madden and although the project only had two of the original cast available (Mark Hammil and Anthony Daniels) a 13 part radio serial adaptation was constructed and broadcast in March 1981 where it proved to be a massive success despite only two of the original cast returning to voice their parts. This prompted the NPR to make a 10 part serial of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) which was broadcast in 1983. NPR never got to make an adaptation of Return of the Jedi (1983) due to drastic budget cuts by Congress to NPR funding in summer 1983. However in the mid 1990s, Highbridge Audio, a third party who had recently acquired rights to sell audio cassettes and CD's of the first two radio serials financed an audio adaptation of Return of the Jedi and this was released in 1996, albeit with almost none of the original actors returning. In fact Anthony Daniels was the only actor who appeared in all three audio adaptations of the original trilogy.

Film

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