98 Fun Facts About Star Wars: a New Hope

Star Wars opened in US cinemas in 1977 on the Wednesday before which holiday weekend?

Memorial Day weekend was Lucas's pick, though a Fox executive noted that nobody had ever opened a summer film before school was out; it began on May 25 in just 32 theaters.

Which film's release prompted Star Wars' Episode IV subtitle?

The Empire Strikes Back had opened in 1980 already titled Episode V, so the April 1981 reissue of the original added Episode IV – A New Hope to its crawl to bring the two films into line.

Which Kurosawa film about peasants escorting a princess shaped Lucas's Star Wars treatment?

The Hidden Fortress is told through its two lowliest characters, a device Lucas has said he borrowed: Star Wars opens with the droids C-3PO and R2-D2 rather than with its heroes.

What was the title of Lucas's unfinished two-page synopsis from early 1973?

Journal of the Whills told of a 'Jedi-Bendu' and his apprentice in two pages; Lucas's agent found it so confusing that he advised something simpler, and Lucas began again.

What was Luke's surname in the drafts before it became Skywalker during production?

Starkiller was still Luke's surname when shooting began; Lucas dropped it for Skywalker over what he called its 'unpleasant connotations' with Charles Manson, whose followers had murdered the actress Sharon Tate.

Which Fox executive championed Star Wars after United Artists and Universal had passed on it?

Alan Ladd Jr., a Fox vice president, admitted he did not grasp the technical side but loved a private screening of American Graffiti; Lucas said later that Ladd had invested in him, not in the film.

Which actor turned down the part of Han Solo because he did not understand the script?

Al Pacino said he was offered a fortune but could not make sense of the script, so he passed; he later joked that he had been in the mood to give Harrison Ford a career.

Which actor was considered for Obi-Wan but was instead cast as the villainous Tarkin?

Peter Cushing was first considered for Obi-Wan; as Tarkin he was given boots so painfully small that he played many scenes in slippers, filmed from the waist up.

What did Luke want to pick up at Tosche Station?

Luke whines that he was going to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters; Uncle Owen tells him he can waste time with his friends when his chores are done.

Anthony Daniels wanted the C-3PO role after seeing whose concept painting of the droid?

Ralph McQuarrie's painting of a gleaming C-3PO, modelled on the Maschinenmensch of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, won Daniels over; he later kept the voice role after Lucas auditioned about thirty other actors.

What job was Peter Mayhew doing when he was cast as Chewbacca?

Hospital orderly Peter Mayhew, 7 ft 3 in tall, said he won the part simply by standing up to greet Lucas, whose eyes 'almost popped out of his head'.

Why did Lucas dub James Earl Jones over the actor inside the Vader suit?

He had a West Country English accent: David Prowse spoke Vader's lines on set in a rural burr that, Carrie Fisher said, earned him the nickname 'Darth Farmer', and Lucas wanted a darker voice.

How did Ben Burtt create R2-D2's beeps and squeaks?

By imitating baby noises on a synthesizer, in short: Burtt recorded his own infant-like coos over an intercom, then blended them with electronic tones from an ARP 2600.

Luke's Tatooine home was filmed at an underground hotel in which Tunisian town?

Matmata's Hotel Sidi Driss, a traditional Berber dwelling dug into the ground, played the inside of the Lars homestead and came back to the screen in Attack of the Clones in 2002.

The rebel base on Yavin 4 was filmed at which Mayan site in Guatemala?

Tikal's temples, rising above the jungle canopy, stood in for the rebel base; Lucas chose the site after seeing it on a poster in an English travel agency during the shoot.

The motion-control camera system built for the Star Wars effects shots became known as what?

The Dykstraflex, named for effects chief John Dykstra, could repeat one camera move around a still model pass after pass, so separate elements lined up in a single shot; it won a technical Oscar.

The Millennium Falcon was redesigned because its first version resembled ships from which TV series?

The first Falcon looked too much like the Eagle transporters of Space: 1999, so Joe Johnston had four weeks to redo it, told only to 'think of a flying saucer'; the old model became Leia's Tantive IV.

The Falcon's final shape is often said to be based on what, with the cockpit as an olive on the side?

A hamburger with an olive on the side is the popular account of the saucer Joe Johnston drew in four weeks; in the story the ship is a Corellian freighter that Han won from Lando Calrissian at cards.

Lucas first assigned the Death Star's design to which artist?

Colin Cantwell built the first models of the Death Star, X-wing and TIE fighter from Lucas's directions; his original Millennium Falcon was reused instead as the rebel ship in the opening shot.

Where do Luke and Obi-Wan hire Han Solo and Chewbacca?

Mos Eisley's cantina is where they find Han; Obi-Wan has already warned Luke that the spaceport is a 'wretched hive of scum and villainy'.

Which crime lord do Han and Chewbacca leave to pay off before the Death Star attack?

Han owes Jabba the Hutt for a smuggled cargo he dumped when boarded by the Empire; in 1977 Jabba appeared only in dialogue, since the scene with a human Jabba (Declan Mulholland) was cut.

Which friend of Luke's leaves Tatooine for the Rebellion in scenes cut from the 1977 release?

Biggs Darklighter, Luke's Anchorhead friend, tells him he is joining the Rebellion in scenes cut before release; he survives in the film as Red Three, dying in the trench run.

Which filmmaker helped trim the Star Wars opening crawl from six paragraphs to four sentences?

Brian De Palma, shown an unfinished cut, called the crawl too long and incomprehensible, then worked with Jay Cocks to cut it down; Spielberg, by contrast, enjoyed the rough cut.

In the unfinished Star Wars cut shown to Lucas's friends, what stood in for the space battles?

World War II dogfight footage from old war films filled the gaps; Lucas also spliced such clips together to show the effects team the kind of movement he wanted from their spaceships.

Halfway through production the director replaced his editor with Paul Hirsch, Richard Chew and whom?

Marcia Lucas, the director's wife, joined Paul Hirsch and Richard Chew after John Jympson's first cut disappointed Lucas; the three shared the Academy Award for Best Film Editing.

John Williams recorded the score over 12 days in March 1977 with which ensemble?

The London Symphony Orchestra had a new principal trumpet, Maurice Murphy, whose first day in the job was the first day of recording; Williams recalled that the first thing he played was the fanfare's high C.

Whose disco version of the Star Wars theme hit number one in the US in October 1977?

Meco's disco medley 'Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band' topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in October 1977, outdoing John Williams's own main title, which peaked at No. 10.

Star Wars lost Best Picture to which film?

Annie Hall took Best Picture and three more awards, yet Star Wars left with the night's biggest haul: six Oscars, all for craft and none in a top category.

Which Star Wars cast member earned the film's only acting Oscar nomination?

Alec Guinness was nominated for Best Supporting Actor as Obi-Wan, in a film he had called 'fairy-tale rubbish' in letters to friends; the award went to Jason Robards.

Which actor played Luke's Uncle Owen?

Phil Brown, an American actor who had moved to England after being blacklisted in Hollywood, played Owen Lars; Shelagh Fraser played Aunt Beru.

Which toy company sold an 'empty box' of Star Wars figures for Christmas 1977?

Kenner took the licence Mego had turned down but signed too late to make toys for Christmas, so it sold an Early Bird certificate in a box, redeemable for four figures in early 1978.

Who ghostwrote the Star Wars novelization credited to George Lucas and published before the film?

Alan Dean Foster ghostwrote the novel, out about six months before the film; he also wrote Splinter of the Mind's Eye as a sequel cheap enough to shoot if Star Wars flopped.

The first public screening of Star Wars, a sneak preview on May 1, 1977, took place in which city?

San Francisco's Northpoint Theatre was familiar ground for Lucas: American Graffiti had been test-screened there four years earlier, before becoming a major hit.

Which William Friedkin film bumped Star Wars from Mann's Chinese Theatre in June 1977?

Sorcerer had a contract for the screen that Paramount insisted on, so Star Wars moved out; when Friedkin's thriller failed, the space film came back on August 3 for a second opening.

Lucas was certain which rival 1977 film would beat Star Wars at the box office?

Lucas was so sure Close Encounters of the Third Kind would outgross Star Wars that he and Spielberg swapped 2.5 per cent of each other's profits; Star Wars won, and Spielberg collected for decades.

Ben Burtt inserted the Wilhelm scream into which moment of Star Wars?

A stormtrooper shot off a ledge by Luke falls into the Death Star chasm with the Wilhelm scream, a 1951 stock effect that Burtt revived and slipped into film after film as an in-joke.

Which uncle of Ewan McGregor played the X-wing pilot Wedge Antilles in Star Wars?

Denis Lawson played Wedge in all three original films, though in the first his lines were dubbed by the American actor David Ankrum and the credits misspelled him as 'Dennis'.

Which institution keeps the National Film Registry, which listed Star Wars in 1989?

Library of Congress staff asked for the original 1977 cut, but Lucasfilm offered only the altered Special Edition, so the copy they can show is a scan of the print deposited for copyright.

Which actor, 3 feet 8 inches tall, sat inside R2-D2 to work the droid from within?

Kenny Baker later confessed he had expected the film to fail; his stage partner Jack Purvis was in it too, as the chief Jawa.

Who won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design for Star Wars?

John Mollo won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design for Star Wars, dressing stormtroopers, rebels and Vader from the concept art; he later shared a second Oscar for Gandhi.

Which Japanese star of Kurosawa's samurai films was approached to play Obi-Wan Kenobi?

Toshiro Mifune turned the part down; his daughter Mika said he feared that a science-fiction film's special effects would cheapen the image of the samurai.

At which English studio were most of the Star Wars interior sets built and filmed?

Elstree Studios gave the production all nine of its sound stages for the starships, cantina and Death Star corridors; only the rebel hangar, too big to fit, was built elsewhere.

Lucas's first-choice cinematographer, who withdrew, had shot which landmark science-fiction film?

Geoffrey Unsworth, who had photographed 2001: A Space Odyssey, agreed to shoot Star Wars but withdrew for Vincente Minnelli's A Matter of Time; Gilbert Taylor, of Dr. Strangelove and A Hard Day's Night, replaced him.

Besides Tunisia, additional Tatooine scenes were shot in which American location?

Death Valley supplied extra desert scenes, with local schoolchildren as Jawas and a bantha that was really an elephant named Mardji, who kept trying to shake off her furry costume.

What release date was Star Wars first given before production delays pushed it back to mid-1977?

Christmas Day 1976 was the date first set, but production delays pushed the opening into the following year; even then the film was finished less than a week before it reached cinemas.

What injury to Mark Hamill limited re-shoots of Luke's scenes?

Facial scars from a car accident in January 1977 left Hamill unable to shoot the last pickups, so a double sat in for Luke in the remaining landspeeder shots.

John Williams's main title theme was inspired by the score of which 1942 film?

Erich Wolfgang Korngold's 1942 score for Kings Row, with its soaring brass fanfare, was the model for Williams's main title; Lucas had used Korngold and Holst among his temp tracks.

Lucas renegotiated his Star Wars deal to gain control of which rights?

Merchandising and sequels were the prize: the success of American Graffiti gave Lucas the leverage to reopen his deal, and he passed up a bigger directing fee to keep them.

Sound designer Ben Burtt made Darth Vader's rasping breath in Star Wars by breathing through which piece of equipment?

A scuba regulator supplied the rasp, and making the sound that way inspired the idea that Darth Vader was a burn victim.

What was Harrison Ford asked to do at the Star Wars auditions before he was cast as Han Solo?

Asked only to read lines with others, he won the part anyway: George Lucas had wanted unknown faces and had already directed him once.

Which planet, the home of Princess Leia, does the Death Star destroy with its superlaser in Star Wars: A New Hope?

Alderaan is wiped out on the orders of Grand Moff Tarkin, who wants to make an example of a planet that supported the Rebellion.

Chewbacca's voice in Star Wars blends a badger, a lion, a seal, a walrus and four of which other animal?

Bears lead the list of animals that sound designer Ben Burtt mixed for the Wookiee. George Lucas called the film's library of such sounds an organic soundtrack.

Which 1975 blockbuster did Star Wars replace as the highest-earning film in the US and Canada within six months?

Jaws lost the record to a film that had opened in only 32 theaters, at a time when very few cinemas wanted to show it.

Which small hooded scavengers capture R2-D2 and C-3PO on Tatooine and sell them to Luke Skywalker's uncle in Star Wars?

Jawas cross the desert in long-abandoned mining vehicles called sandcrawlers, and keep their faces so far inside their hoods that only their glowing eyes show.

George Lucas wrote Star Wars after failing to get the film rights to which 1930s space serial hero?

Flash Gordon was out of reach because its owners were courting Federico Fellini, so Lucas wrote his own space opera and borrowed the serials' opening text crawl.

What single restriction did George Lucas place on Mel Brooks before allowing his Star Wars spoof Spaceballs?

No action figures was the only condition, so Spaceballs went ahead and reached cinemas in 1987, ten years after the film it mocks.

In an early George Lucas draft of Star Wars, Han Solo was a large monster with gills and skin of which color?

Green skin and gills were gone by the second draft, in which Han Solo and Chewbacca already closely resembled the pair seen in the finished film.

Darth Vader's mask in Star Wars was created by combining a full-face breathing mask with the helmet of which warriors?

Samurai headgear met a breathing mask on the drawing board, and the finished costume added clerical robes, a motorcycle suit and a military gas mask.

Which earlier conflict does Obi-Wan Kenobi say he fought in beside Luke Skywalker's father in A New Hope?

The Clone Wars stayed off screen for 25 years, until the prequel Attack of the Clones showed an army of clone troopers being raised to fight them.

Carrie Fisher said George Lucas's rare notes to the Star Wars cast usually asked them to be faster and more what?

Intense was the word, and the cast in turn tried to make their director laugh, because he so often looked depressed during the shoot.

In Star Wars, Han Solo boasts that the Millennium Falcon completed which route in less than twelve parsecs?

The Kessel Run boast needed explaining, because a parsec measures distance and not time. A 2018 prequel film finally showed the run on screen.

How do R2-D2 and C-3PO leave Princess Leia's captured ship at the start of Star Wars: A New Hope?

In an escape pod, the pair drop to the desert planet Tatooine with the stolen plans, which is why Darth Vader sends troops down after them.

What does Obi-Wan Kenobi switch off aboard the Death Star so the Millennium Falcon can leave in A New Hope?

The tractor beam had hauled the Falcon aboard, and shutting it down cost Obi-Wan his life: Darth Vader met him in a duel on the way back.

What do Luke Skywalker's uncle and aunt farm on the desert planet Tatooine in Star Wars: A New Hope?

Moisture farms pull water out of the dry desert air with machines called vaporators, a hard and remote way of life that Luke longs to leave.

Which rating did the US ratings board first pick for Star Wars before Fox, unusually, asked for a stricter one?

G was the board's first choice, but Fox feared teenagers would find it uncool. A marketer had also seen a five-year-old upset when Darth Vader chokes a rebel captain.

Which later film shows how the rebels stole the Death Star plans and ends just before A New Hope begins?

Rogue One arrived in 2016 as a direct prequel, almost forty years after the story it sets up first reached cinemas.

In Star Wars: A New Hope, the stolen plans reveal which small weak point leading straight to the Death Star's reactor?

An exhaust port is the flaw, and Luke Skywalker hits it with the Force as his guide, moments before the station can fire on the rebel base.

Which large horned beasts native to Tatooine do the Sand People train as mounts in Star Wars: A New Hope?

Banthas are ridden in single file, so that anyone following the trail cannot tell how many Sand People have passed.

Which publisher's comic book adaptation of Star Wars was later credited with single-handedly saving the company?

Marvel Comics had its first issue on sale weeks before the film opened, and included scenes that never reached the screen.

How does the Empire find the secret rebel base after the Millennium Falcon flees the Death Star in A New Hope?

A tracking device planted aboard the Falcon leads the Death Star to the moon Yavin 4, which the station then moves to destroy.

George Lucas has said which J. R. R. Tolkien book influenced him as he redrafted the script of Star Wars?

The Hobbit left a mark on an early draft, which is said to have borrowed a greeting between Gandalf and Bilbo for Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke.

Besides leading the rebels in secret, Princess Leia sits in which governing body in Star Wars: A New Hope?

The Imperial Senate does not outlast the film: the Emperor dissolves it, leaving Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader to hunt down the rebels.

Which famous voice did George Lucas consider for Darth Vader in Star Wars but reject as too familiar to audiences?

Orson Welles was passed over, yet audiences and critics at once recognized the actor who was hired instead, James Earl Jones.

Before settling on desert, George Lucas first imagined Tatooine in Star Wars as what kind of world?

A jungle planet was the plan, and the producer scouted the Philippines, until the thought of months of filming in the jungle made Lucas choose desert instead.

In Star Wars, the protocol droid C-3PO is fluent in more than how many forms of communication?

Six million is the boast of a droid built for etiquette and translation. On Tatooine, he and R2-D2 are sold to a family of farmers all the same.

Which audio company developed the new stereo layout in which the sound of Star Wars was mixed for cinemas?

Dolby designed the layout to keep the voices in the center channel while the side channels boosted the low bass effects.

George Lucas said Princess Leia's bun hairstyle in Star Wars was inspired by women revolutionaries of which country?

Mexico around 1900 was the reference Lucas gave, and a museum exhibit later named one revolutionary, Clara de la Rocha, as an inspiration for the buns.

George Lucas asked for the cantina music in Star Wars to sound like aliens interpreting which 1930s swing bandleader?

Benny Goodman was on set in spirit too: the effects crew who played the alien musicians mimed along to one of his records.

The lightsaber hum in Star Wars mixes television interference caught by a microphone with the motor of which machine?

A movie projector supplied the steady hum, and Ben Burtt found the television buzz by accident while hunting for a sparking sound to add to it.

Outside North America, which country became the biggest box-office market for Star Wars?

Japan was the biggest overseas market, though the film only went abroad late in its first year and did not reach British cinemas until the end of December.

After Star Wars made George Lucas rich, the director of The Godfather asked him for money to finish which Vietnam epic?

Apocalypse Now had once been Lucas's own next project, and its stalling in development is what freed him to start writing his space opera full-time.

Which actor was in the running for both Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in Star Wars but won neither part?

Kurt Russell lost out twice in a casting search where George Lucas preferred unknown or little-known faces for his leads.

Which author argued that the parallels between Star Wars and his own desert-planet novels were no coincidence?

Frank Herbert wrote the Dune novels, which share a desert world, a precious spice and a mind-controlling voice with the film.

In A New Hope, which world does Princess Leia name as the rebel base in a bid to save her own planet?

Dantooine held only an abandoned headquarters, and Grand Moff Tarkin destroyed her planet regardless.

What did the crew of Star Wars fix beneath Luke Skywalker's landspeeder to hide its wheels and make it seem to hover?

An angled mirror hid the wheels and a broom kicked up dust. The speeder itself was built on the chassis of a three-wheeled Bond Bug car.

The designers of the Millennium Falcon set for Star Wars wanted its interior to look like which kind of vessel?

A submarine was the model, and the cramped look was achieved cheaply with scrap metal from old airplanes.

Which American radio network broadcast a 13-part drama adaptation of Star Wars in 1981?

NPR aired the serial after George Lucas let a public radio station at his old university have the rights for one dollar, and it restored scenes cut from the film.

Which scientist used a 1978 Tonight Show appearance to point out how white the human cast of Star Wars was?

Carl Sagan was not alone: the actor Raymond St. Jacques wrote that people of color seemed to have no place in the film's galactic future.

Whose voice, taken from his old films and heavily synthesized, speaks for the Imperial spy Garindan in Star Wars?

John Wayne's recordings were processed into the alien speech of an informer who leads Imperial troops to the Millennium Falcon.

Industrial Light & Magic, founded to make Star Wars, began work in a warehouse in which California community?

Van Nuys housed the young effects team, which at one point had spent half its budget on four shots that George Lucas rejected.

Which Imperial officer does Darth Vader choke with the Force for scoffing at it in Star Wars: A New Hope?

Admiral Motti was played by Richard LeParmentier, an American actor based in Britain who had first auditioned to play Han Solo.

The Star Wars logo designed by Suzy Rice began as an outlined, modified version of which common typeface?

Helvetica Black was her starting point after George Lucas asked for a logo that looked very fascist and would intimidate the viewer.

George Lucas was warned to cut his stress while making Star Wars after a diagnosis of exhaustion and which condition?

Hypertension struck during a shoot that ran so late that the studio gave Lucas one week to finish or be shut down.

Which thriller knocked Star Wars off the top of the US box office after its first three weeks?

The Deep did not hold the top spot for long: Star Wars kept adding screens, returned to number one in its seventh week and stayed for 15 more.

Cinemas wanting which Fox drama, based on a bestseller, had to book Star Wars too?

The Other Side of Midnight was the film exhibitors actually wanted, so Fox used it as bait for a space adventure that few theaters had asked for.

In what form does Princess Leia's plea for help appear when R2-D2 plays it for Luke Skywalker in A New Hope?

A hologram flickers out of the little droid, but it shows only a fragment until R2-D2 finds Obi-Wan Kenobi and plays the whole message.

What does Princess Leia present to Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in the closing ceremony of Star Wars: A New Hope?

Medals for heroism go to the two pilots, and Chewbacca is finally handed one in The Rise of Skywalker, 42 years later.

The blaster sound in Star Wars came from striking which object while it was stretched under tension?

A steel cable gave the laser bolts their twang. Sound designer Ben Burtt, who recorded it, left the Oscars with a Special Achievement Award for the film's creature and robot voices.