On this day, 38 years ago, Star Wars first hit cinemas. Let’s delve into some little known facts about it.
Today the success of Star Wars is never questioned. It doesn’t even matter if you’ve seen the films or not, Star Wars is deep enough into our culture to the point where the popularity is not gonna fade away for at least another century. But did you know there was little faith in the project before it came out?
20th Century Fox greenlit the project, even though it was an insane risk at the time. Nobody thought anybody but young boys would go watch it, believing the entire female and adult demographic would have no interest in something with “War” in the title, so close after the Vietnam War. One of George Lucas‘ director friends, Brian de Palma, got to see an early cut of the film, and called it “The worst movie ever”. Even so, he helped writing the opening text, due to finding the previous draft too difficult to understand.
There were reports that Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi, hated his role in the film. Though, there are some mixed reports about this. The rest of the main actors were quick to compliment him on how patient and respectful he’d act on set, but Guinness was clear in saying that he disliked the dialogue of the film.
Even George Lucas had little faith in the film. It had already gone three million over its eight million dollar budget, and there were ideas floating around that the effects could be removed from the film and used in TV shows if the film did not end up happening. In fact, Lucas, who had worked himself into poor health, was so certain the film would bomb, that he didn’t even attend the premiere. Instead, he traveled to Hawaii with Steven Spielberg, a very good friend of his.
Spielberg was also making a big sci-fi movie at the time, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which would come out in November of the same year. Spielberg had the benefit of making Jaws two years earlier, which back then was the highest grossing movie of all time. However, unlike Lucas, he was sure Star Wars was gonna be a great financial success. So they made a bet, both to prove each other wrong, and to help the other one out in the worst case scenario, that they’d give each other 2.5% of the profits. Needless to say, Spielberg clearly won that bet, but considering Star Wars took Jaws’ place for the most profitable movie of all time, and considering Close Encounters was also a big hit, there weren’t really any losers in the bet. They also came up with the idea for Raiders of the Lost Ark during their vacation, which they’d later create together.
But even though Lucas took Spielberg’s place with Star Wars being the most profitable movie of all time, it only lasted for five years, until E.T. came along and took the number one spot again. Today, none of them are that close to the top anymore, but it should be pointed out that Star Wars is still the oldest movie on the top 100 grossing movies list, without adjusting for inflation (ranking at #53).
Going closer into the movie itself, did you know R2-D2 was originally supposed to speak English? In early drafts of the script, R2 would use rather profane words. A lot of C-3PO’s reactions to these were, however, still left in the script. So with that in mind, we can just imagine that everything R2 is saying had to be bleeped out.
Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher would sometimes do their own stunts. For instance, in the scene where they’re swinging over a pit, no stunt men were used, and they got it done in one take. However, bummed out about not getting to use the wires more than that one take, Hamill convinced someone on the crew to let him fly around the set for fun. He later got yelled at.
But what would the series be without the main villain, Darth Vader himself. By now, most people know that the actor and the voice is not the same person. David Prowse is behind the costume, while James Earl Jones did the classic voice, accompanied by the sound of a scuba diving mouthpiece. What’s more interesting is that the two actors never actually met.
It was also just barely that the character made it into the following movies. The scene of Vader spinning out of control was almost not added, as it was seen too much as sequel bait, which at the time were considered nothing but cash-ins. However, Lucas insisted on adding it, and near the end of production he got his way, making way for one of the most popular film franchises of all time.
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