50 things you might not know about the original Star Wars films

Think you’re a “Star Wars” expert? Here are 50 things even the biggest “Star Wars” fans might not know about the three original Star Wars films.

1. When “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” was released in theaters, the “IV” was removed because the studio thought it would be confusing. Once the movies became popular, the “IV” was put back on.
2. George Lucas first began writing Star Wars as a Saturday afternoon serial. A Saturday afternoon serial, which were short chapter films shown in movie theaters on — naturally enough — Saturday afternoons. However, the Star Wars story soon became too big and complicated to fit the serial format, or even in a single movie. Lucas split off the first act of his script, and that became the first Star Wars film.
3. Splitting his script required a few revisions — the battle with the Death Star at the end of Episode IV was not originally supposed to be there, for example, but the story needed a climax, so in it went.
4. “A New Hope” opens with a battle in the skies above Tatooine, and originally included scenes of Luke intercut with the galactic action overhead. George Lucas never liked it, so eventually he ended up taking it out. You can read those scenes in the script, though, in case you’re curious.
5. To shoot the scenes on Tatooine, the crew went to Tunisia, where they immediately ran into problems. It rained, there were sandstorms, the R2-D2 droid would only travel a few feet (and then, rarely in a straight line) and the C3PO suit didn’t work. Many of the Tatooine scenes with the Jawas and the droids were shot again later in Death Valley.
6. The sounds R2-D2 makes needed to have both a human quality and an organic, real-world feel, so the sounds were created using a blend of human and synthesizer sounds blended together, and were then played back and re-recorded in real environments, like a bathroom or a hallway.
7. While shooting in Tunisia, the Jawa Sandcrawler was blown over and demolished by a sandstorm. A crew was able to rebuild the set piece by working 24 hours a day for 40 hours.
8. Anthony Daniels was not supposed to be the voice of C3PO, and C3PO was never supposed to have a British accent. Daniels provided the voicing as a reference, and everybody eventually fell in love with him. At that point, it didn’t make sense to try to create a new voice for the character.
9. Many of the actors’ lines had to be re-recorded after filming because the C3PO and R2-D2 costumes were so noisy.
10. The sound of the lightsaber was first inspired by Lucas’ work as a projectionist during school. He always loved the hum the old 33mm theater projectors made when they were sitting idle and thought it would be perfect for lightsabers. However, the sound didn’t seem dangerous enough on its own. The second element in a lightsaber’s hum came from Lucas carrying a partially broken microphone cord through his apartment. The mic picked up the buzz from a television picture tube, and he realized that was the dangerous element his lightsaber noise was missing.
11. To capture the “walla,” or the background babble of voices in the Mos Eisley cantina, a group of editors got together, inhaled a bunch of helium from balloons and recorded themselves talking.
12. Chewbacca’s voice comes mainly from recordings of bear noises. One pet bear named Pooh was particularly helpful in capturing noises. Filmmakers would record the sounds and break them down into emotional categories — cute, angry, inquisitive, etc. — which could then be edited together to give the audience a sense of Chewie’s dialogue.
13. In case you’ve wondered why the Millennium Falcon is said to be the fastest ship in the galaxy, it’s because it’s got a phenomenal navigational computer. It’s impossible to fly straight through space because of obstacles like planets, etc., so speed is dictated by navigational choices. A “fast” ship is one that can travel from Point A to Point B — around whatever obstacles in its path — very quickly.
14. If you saw the film in theaters in 1977, you saw one of three different sound edits. The edit you heard was dictated by the type of theater you went to. Each of the mixes had slightly different voice sounds or sound effects, etc., because editors would make changes each time they recut the sound.
15. Obi-Wan was not originally supposed to die, but George Lucas realized that there was no reason Han and Luke would step into leadership roles after escaping from the Death Star if Obi-Wan was around to take the lead. The problem with killing off Obi-Wan, though, was that he was needed later in the story. That’s why Lucas came up with the idea of having a ghostly Obi-Wan.
16. In the scene where Luke and Han say their goodbyes prior to the attack on the Death Star, there were only two real ships in the hangar. Every time filmmakers would change camera angles, they’d have to move the ships to hide their lack of ships.
17. The voices of the fighter pilots in the attack on the Death Star were recorded two different times: once clean, and once through a ham radio. The sound editors would switch off using the two versions depending on whether the characters were on or off screen, or to match the movements of the ship, etc.
18. “Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back” was the first time the filmmakers were able to put the episode number and title in the crawl for the release of the film.
19. Mark Hamill was in a car accident between the filming of Episode IV and Episode V, and was going to look a little different in the second film. The filmmakers didn’t put the wampa attack into the story because of Hamill’s changed looks, but the attack provided a fictional explanation for real changes.
20. The filmmakers bought an old Cadillac Eldorado and used the motors in the doors, which were used to operate the windows, to create the sounds of C3PO walking around.
21. The shots of Mark Hamill crawling through the snow after escaping from the wampa were shot in Norway during a blizzard. The filmmakers sent him out and they filmed from the safety of their hotel.
22. When filming the Millennium Falcon’s escape from Hoth, Harrison Ford spoke very fast. He later had to re-record his lines, and had a difficult time matching his own speed. He told filmmakers, “I can’t talk that fast,” and insisted that the scene must’ve been running faster than they actually filmed it. Eventually Ford was able to recreate the adrenaline and excitement he had originally had in filming the scene, though, and was able to successfully dub his lines.
23. Yoda was not in the original script — he was originally Obi-Wan. Having killed off Obi-Wan to accommodate the needs of “A New Hope,” though, Lucas found he had written himself into a problem. He invented Yoda to fix things, and thought it would be funny to make one of the world’s greatest Jedi look like anything but.
24. Stuart Freeborn created the head for Yoda, and said it was both a self-portrait and a portrait of director Irvin Kershner. George Lucas was so impressed by Frank Oz’s portrayal of Yoda that he lobbied to get Oz an Academy Award nomination, but the Screen Actors Guild said puppeteers weren’t actors, according to Lucas.
25. The shot of the Millennium Falcon flying out of the monster’s mouth on the meteor is an example of how director expectation and audience reaction sometimes don’t line up. Lucas said he always expected the scene to get a laugh, but it never did.
26. When acting opposite Yoda, Mark Hamill couldn’t actually hear Frank Oz saying the lines because Oz was under the floor manipulating Yoda. They rehearsed the scenes multiple times with Hamill wearing an earpiece, and when they shot, he took out the earpiece and rehearsal muscles took over.
27. Mark Hamill was quite nervous about taking the snake out of his plane, despite being assured that it wasn’t poisonous. He managed in the end, though.
28. Director Ivan Kershner said he inserted the shot of Chewbacca picks up C3PO’s head in Cloud City on purpose — in a nod to Hamlet, Chewie gets his own “Poor Yoric” moment.
29. When Leia says, “I love you,” to Han, Han was supposed to say, “I love you too.” The director hated the line, though, because he felt the person who said it first had the advantage. They came up with a bunch of different lines, but none of them seemed right. After half an hour of shooting these different lines, the director finally said, “let’s do one more take. Don’t think about it—shoot. Action!” Han’s response — “I know” — is what Harrison Ford came up with in that moment. Nobody else wanted to leave the line, according to director Ivan Kershner, but he loved it.
30. In the original version of the carbonite-encased Han Solo, Harrison Ford had his arms down by his side and looked like he was at rest. The director said, “No, that doesn’t work. He would be fighting to the end.” He then mimicked what he wanted — both hands up and a grimacing face— and that’s what ended up in the movie.
31. The sound of carbonized Han falling is actually the sound of a Dumpster closing
32. When C3PO is in pieces and being carried by Chewbacca, the head and arms were supposed to move electronically. When that didn’t work, though, the prop master had to come up with a quick fix. He hooked a nylon cable to the back of the hand and another around the head, and actor Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) held the cables in his hands. As Mayhew ran, the cables would move too, and that would move C3PO.
33. There can never be more than two Sith Lords at a time, because if there’s a third, two of them will always gang up on the third and take him or her out. Vader wanted Luke to join him so they could take out the Emperor; the Emperor wanted Luke to join him so they could take out Vader.
34. According to Lucas, Anakin would’ve been able to take down the Emperor himself if he hadn’t gotten hurt, but after being injured and becoming partially mechanical, he needed Luke to help achieve his own ambitions.
35. In saying, “There is another,” the filmmakers introduced the idea that Luke was expendable. Prior to that, the audience would assume he couldn’t die, and where’s the tension in that?
36. The scene between Darth Vader and Luke — when Darth Vader reveals the truth about Luke’s father — was not in the script. Mark Hamill was the only actor to see it, right before shooting. David Prowse, who played Darth Vader, learned other lines, and was shown motions Lucas had choreographed to go with Vader’s big revelation, but didn’t know that the lines would be different until he saw the changed scene in the film’s London premiere.
37. Lucas was worried the ending of “The Empire Strikes Back” would be troubling to children, so he talked to psychologists about it. He worried abut two things: (1) Vader being Luke’s father, and (2) Vader cutting Luke’s hand off. The psychologists told him that if Vader being Luke’s father was too troubling, kids would either deny it or believe that Vader was lying. The hand, they said, was fine because Luke gets a new one later.
38. To give Larry Ward — the voice of Jabba the Hutt — the deepest and heaviest sound possible, the filmmakers pitched his voice an octave lower and ran it through a subharmonic generator to give it a booming, heavy sound.
39. The interrogator droid in Jabba’s palace is voiced by George Lucas. The voice of the droid having his feet burned is also voiced by Lucas.
40. Jabba’s movements and voice are accompanied by squelching, disgusting sounds. These sounds were achieved in a variety of ways, including running human hands through cheese casserole and squelching a wet and muddy towel in the bottom of a garbage can
41. The voice for Boushh, the bounty hunter Princess Leia disguises herself as, was provided by a woman named Pat Welsh. Welsh was also was the principle voice for E.T.
42. The growls of Jabba’s rancor are actually the growls of a neighbor’s dachshund, which were recorded and then pitched much lower
43. The rancor puppet had specialized eyes made for it, but when they didn’t show up on film, the filmmakers replaced them with the shiniest things they could find — ball bearings
44. Had George Lucas known how popular bounty hunter Boba Fett would become (or that he would end up telling his origin story in the newer Star Wars films), he says he would’ve given him a more spectacular death. When “Return of the Jedi” was filmed, Boba Fett was nothing more than a minion.
45. Because Yoda was originally supposed to be Obi-Wan, Yoda’s death was also originally supposed to be Obi-Wan’s.
46. Going into “Return of the Jedi,” George Lucas assumed that at least half of the audience wouldn’t believe that Darth Vader really was Luke’s father, so he had to reaffirm the truth of it through Luke’s conversations with Yoda and Obi-Wan.
47. In the original Star Wars script, Lucas wanted the final battle to involve Wookies on the Wookie planet of Kashyyyk. However, he also wanted the fighting to involve primitive weapons and warfare. Because he had established Wookies as being technologically advanced, though, his original plan had to be changed — hence, the invention of the Ewoks, which Lucas describes as being like “half-sized Wookies”
48. The Ewok language is derivative of Kalmyk, a language that comes out of central China. Lucas saw documentary involving people from the region and found the language very interesting. In order to create the Ewok language, the filmmakers invited an 80-year-old refugee woman to the recording studio to tell stories.
49. Ben Burtt, a sound designer for “Return of the Jedi,” makes one brief appearance as an Imperial officer in the Endor power station. He jumps out from behind a wall and says “freeze,” and then meets his untimely end when Han Solo knocks him into the generator with a toolbox. He is listed as the “Freeze” officer on IMDB.
50. Nien Nunb, Lando’s copilot during the final attack on the Death Star, was voiced by a foreign student from Kenya who spoke a real-life language called Haya. The lines were really written to fit the scene, but few could understand them until the movie played in Kenya, where audiences reportedly loved it.

Bonus

If you’re deep into Star Wars lore or just keep your eye on the background characters of the original films, you may have noticed a Rebel pilot named Wedge. Wedge had the devil’s own luck and managed to survive all three of the prequel films, despite taking on the Death Star twice.

The character of Wedge was played by an actor named Dennis Lawson, who — years later — had a nephew follow in his Star Wars footprints.

Dennis Lawson’s nephew is Ewan McGregor, aka Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Episodes I, II and III