10 Biggest (And Weirdest) Lawsuits In Star Wars History

2. Lucasfilm Strikes Back Against President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative

Star Wars Rogue One Death Star
Disney

Fresh off the success of the original trilogy, Star Wars was at the height of its powers.

Not only had it infiltrated every corner of the pop-culture world, it had also infiltrated every corner of the world, full-stop. By 1985, it had grown so ubiquitous that it was even used as a shorthand way to describe US President Ronald Reagan's proposal for a "space-based missile defense system."

Widely known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (or SDI for short), this system was the subject of a TV commercial that attempted to simplify what it was all about. To that end, it used animated children's drawings and upbeat, bouncy music, complete with a young girl giving a voiceover that began with the line: "I asked my daddy what this 'Star Wars' stuff is all about."

The thing is, Lucasfilm wasn't best pleased with its Star Wars brand being used to describe an anti-missile program, and so, in November 1985, the studio filed a lawsuit accusing the ad-makers of trademark infringement, unfair trade practices, and disparagement, and sought to have the advertisement altered - or even banned from television entirely.

A few weeks later, a court ruled that Lucasfilm had no right to prohibit the use of the term "Star Wars" in this particular context, and that, unless said phrase was being used for commercial gain, then the trademark could not be infringed.

In this post: 
Star Wars
 
First Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!