The blogosphere is, not surprisingly, sagging under the weight of personal 30th anniversary remembrances today, so I thought I’d offer a few links to some “official” coverage:

• The big Star Wars Celebration IV convention is going on in Los Angeles as I type. The con has an official blog and a photo stream. I am intrigued with Slave Leia belly-dancing.
• ABC News has a then-and-now photo gallery with text to explain whatever happened to the various Star Warriors.
• CNN.com offers up the standard overview and covers much of the same ground I already did in my big entry this morning. Don’t just take my word for it, kids!
• BBC News has a plethora of related pieces, including 30 pieces of trivia that should all be common knowledge to true fanboy types, an interview with Tony Daniels (a.k.a. C-3PO, human-cyborg relations), and a vintage (and very British) review that called the film “that rare commodity – an utterly delightful romp and you’ll be sorry if you miss it.”
• And finally, it’s not exactly anniversary-related, but Star Wars.com has posted a vintage commercial for some convenience store that has just gotten in a line of SW-themed cups. The presenter or whatever you call him isn’t exactly a fountain of charisma, but I like this piece because it demonstrates what I was getting at earlier when I was talking about the organic growth of the merchandising and the very genuine enthusiasm that even extremely average guys felt for a movie that has now, unfortunately, come to be seen as some kind of nerdy cult thing.
  And for the record, I have a complete set of those cups. As if you couldn’t have guessed that.

Back in a bit with more…