1. George Lucas was in a very serious car accident when he was young and while he spent several months
bedridden in a hospital he came up with the idea of the Force and decided to become a filmmaker.
2. Lucas based Chewbacca's character on his dog Indiana, although he saved that name for a different
character...
3. C-3P0 was originally seen as an improved male version of the female robot in Metropolis from
1926.
4. The term Jedi comes from the Japanese samurai-era soap opera called "Jidai."
5. Luke Skywalker's original name was "Starkiller."
6. Lucas originally saw Obi-Wan Kenobi was a goofy eccentric, until Alec Guinness convinced him that
the character should possess a more dignified air. Lucas later bestowed Obi-Wan's original traits on Yoda in The Empire Strikes
Back.
7. Mark Hammill filmed Star Wars while on a break from TV's "Eight is Enough."
8. Harrison Ford was working as a carpenter when he was cast for Star Wars. He actually took
a pay cut to take the part. He got $1,000 a week to play Solo. Imagine him working for that now!
9. Ford improvised many of his most famous lines, including, "Everything's fine here... just a slight
weapons malfunction." As well as Solo's response to Leia's declaration of love in The Empire Strikes Back... the briliant
"I know."
10. When shooting the first Star Wars Tatooine scene, Alec Guinness was concerned that his Jedi
robes looked too clean, so he lay down in the Tunisian desert and rolled around.
11. Which of our favorite horror stars wanted badly to be Luke Skywalker? None other than Robert Englund...
Freddy Kruger himself.
12. George Lucas has provided the initial budget of The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the
Jedi, and Phantom Menace. An estimated $114 million.
13. The Jawas' language is based on a Zulu dialect and then cranked up to twice normal speed.
14. Dutch fans were provided with a clue long before we were!!! 'Vader' is Dutch for 'father.'
15. David Prowse, who wore Darth Vader's costume, had no idea his voice had been dubbed over by James
Earl Jones until he saw the movie in the theater.
16. During the post-production of American Graffiti, Lucas asked his sound editors for "Reel
2, dialogue 2." "R2-D2?" his coworker responded, and thus the name of a droid was born.
17. Jeremy Bulloch, the infamous Boba Fett also appeared as an imperial guard on Cloud City. You can
catch a glimpse of him dragging Leia away by her hair and then being captured by Lando Calrissian.
18. Yoda puppeteer and voice man Frank Oz occasionally amused The Empire Strikes Back's stressed-out
crew with sudden comic appearances by his Muppet alter-ego, Miss Piggy.
19. Rather than chance that the crew would leak the ending, Lucas had David Prowse say the words, "Obi-Wan
is your father."
20. Mischevious Industrial Light and Magic effects technicians allegedly hung a sneaker and a potato
among the asteroid belt in The Empire Strikes Back.
21. Supposedly, by the time Return of the Jedi rolled around, Harrison Ford has so tired of
Han Solo that he begged George Lucas to kill the character off.
22. During the original Star Wars shoot it took over 2.5 hours to get Anthony Daniels into his
C3-P0 costume. By Return of the Jedi, the time had been reduced to 45 minutes.
23. Femi Taylor, the actress who played Jabba's ill-fated first dancer Oola in Return of the Jedi
was in such good shape that she returned 15 years later to shoot more footage for the special edition.
24. George Lucas wanted to hire Steven Spielberg for Jedi, but since it was a non-union production,
Spielberg wouldn't do it.
25. The Tatooine scenes in Star Wars: Special Edition and Phantom Menace were filmed
in the same spot in the Tunisian Sahara desert, but Return of the Jedi's Tatooine scenes were filmed outside Yuma,
Arizona.
26. Ewan McGregor's uncle Denis Lawsom played the beloved rebel pilot Wedge Antilles in the first three
Star Wars films.
27 The original draft of Star Wars was called "The Story of Mace Windu", but that titular character
did not appear until Phantom Menace (He's Samuel L. Jackson's character....)
28. Each live-action location scene in Phantom Menace was filmed 4 times; once with the actors
and blue-screen matted stand ins, once with just the actors, once with just the stand-ins, and once with just the set.
29. Stunt coordinator and swordsman Nick Gillard created a new style of fencing specifically for Phantom
Menace based on traditional Kendo fencing and several Western swordfighting techniques.
30. naraC loves Obi-Wan both young and old.... And to this day can't decide which one is more attractive,
Alec Guinness or Ewan McGregor. ;-)
