Star Wars: Tales from a Scruffy Nerf-Herder

Well today is officially “Star Wars Day” (it’s May 4th… as in “may the fourth be with you”… yea…seriously).

Now I’m a HUGE Star Wars geek so I thought I’d share with you the top things you might not know about the trilogy (the original trilogy)… even if you’re not a “scruffy nerf-herder” like I am, you’ll probably still find it pretty fascinating.

SO here we go….

• Lots of unknown actors were used for the younger characters. In addition to Carrie Fisher, Sissy Spacek and Cindy Williams also auditioned for the role of Leia. The film, “Carrie” was also auditioning, and both Fisher and Spacek auditioned for both. Imagine what that would look like (or having “Shirley” from Laverne and Shirley as Leia…yikes).

• Not only was the studio unsure about the film, most of the cast was thrown by the strange dialogue and story, often leading to tension or awkwardness while filming. (Leia half-british, half-american accent!) No one had any inkling it would be such a smash hit.

• Carrie Fisher was forced to strap down her boobs and keep every inch of skin covered, (they couldn’t have made her look more frumpy). However, she does get to show a bit of skin in the last sequence, which is the outfit used for the representation of Leia in the original poster – scoop neck, not turtleneck.

• David Prowse, a weightlifter from Bristol, played the role on screen but the voice was that of James Earl Jones. Jones was so convinced the film would be a flop, he refused to allow his name in the original credits.

• Lucas got the idea for Chewbacca one morning in the early ’70s while watching his wife, Marcia, drive off in her car. She had their Alaskan malamute, Indiana, (the name sake for Indiana Jones) with her. Lucas liked the way the large shaggy dog looked in the passenger seat so he decided to create a character in the film that was a cross between Indiana, a bear, and a monkey.

• Due to the limited budget the American cast members and crew (including George Lucas) all decided to fly coach class to England, rather than first class. When Carrie Fisher’s mother Debbie Reynolds heard about this she called George Lucas, complaining about how insulting it was for her daughter to be flying coach. Carrie Fisher was in the room with George Lucas when he took the call, and after a few minutes asked if she could talk to her mother. When George Lucas handed her the phone she simply said, “Mother, I want to fly coach, will you fuck off?!” and hung up.

• George Lucas was so sure the film would flop that instead of attending the premiere, he went on holiday to Hawaii with his good friend Steven Spielberg, where they came up with the idea for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

• While George Lucas was filming on location in Tunisia, the Libyan government became worried about a massive military vehicle parked near the Libyan border. Consequently, the Tunisian government, receiving threats of military mobilization, politely asked Lucas to move his Jawa sandcrawler farther away from the border.

• Harrison Ford deliberately didn’t learn his lines for the intercom conversation in the cell block, so it would sound spontaneous.

• Darth Vader has only 12 minutes of screen time in the first movie.

• Stunt doubles were not used for the scene in which Luke and Leia swing to safety. Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill performed that stunt themselves, shooting it in just one take.

• According to Mark Hamill, studio executives were unhappy that Chewbacca has no clothes and attempted to have the costume redesigned with shorts.

• The lightsaber sound effect is a combination of the hum of an idling 35mm movie projector and the feedback generated by passing a stripped microphone cable by a television.

• George Lucas came up with the name R2-D2 during post-production of American Graffiti (1973). One of the sound crew wanted Lucas to retrieve Reel #2 of the Second Dialogue track. In post-production parlance, this came out as “could you get R2-D2 for me?”. Lucas liked the sound of that and noted it down for future use.

• The music by John Williams is ranked #1 on AFI’s 100 Years of Film Scores.

• In an early version of the screenplay, Luke Skywalker was a 60-year old general and Han Solo had green skin and gills.

• Darth Vader was the first character that George Lucas created for the story.

• Meco’s Disco version of the theme song is the biggest selling instrumental single of all time.

• The Millennium Falcon was originally modeled after a hamburger with an olive next to it. Because the name of the ship had not been finalized at this time, storyboards refer to as the pirate ship. Some boards indicate for the first version of the pirate ship (which became the Blockade Runner) to be changed into the ‘Hamburger Boogie’ version.

• George Lucas briefly considered having Boba Fett be Anakin Skywalkers brother

• John Dykstra and the FX team invented a lot of technology including the now vastly used, motion-control camera to match motion of object to camera. Also used were traditional stop motion techniques, as well as rotoscoping (using mattes). In particular, if you have an old copy of the film on VHS, you can see the traveling mattes around the ships.

• In addition to the name change from Luke Starkiller, in earlier drafts of the script, there are the characters of Biggs and Camie, Luke’s friends who have gone to the Academy. In the film, Biggs is one of the rebel pilots in the end sequence.

• After the trilogy came out, and years before Parts 1-3, there were already discussions about focusing on how Vader became Vader and the events leading up to “A New Hope”. One of the minor elements, was the “13 year old Correllian Cabin Boy” on Captain Antilles’ ship. This alluded to Han Solo being there before the events of “A New Hope”, which luckily did not get included in the new films, as it really wouldn’t have made sense. Too much coincidence – does everyone have to know everyone?

• While unknowns were used for the leads, Lucas was able to get some of his faves and also heavier hitters/character actors in there in the roles of Obi-Wan (Guinness), and Tarkin (Peter Cushing). This continued in the new films with the always classically cheesy Christopher Lee, as Dooku.