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- The facts are strong in my family.
My father has it,
I have it,
and now you have it.
- The Force is strong with this one.
- Hmm.
- Here are 50 Amazing Facts about Star Wars.
In his personal life,
Harrison Ford is actually an accomplished pilot.
When they were planning his return in The Force Awakens,
he asked them to make sure
that the switches in the Millennium Falcon
had a realistic, springy feel to it.
He also taught Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey,
to not push buttons too frantically
because everything needs to have a purpose.
- In Attack of the Clones,
in the scene where Anakin and Padme
are romantically sitting in a field talking,
there were actually a lot of bugs
flying around them while filming the scene.
The visual effects team had to remove each bug
during post-production, painting each one out by hand,
one frame at a time.
It took weeks to do.
- When Star Wars first came out in 1977,
Carrie Fisher was 20 years old,
Mark Hamill was 25,
and Harrison Ford was 34,
making him 14 years older than Carrie.
- James Earl Jones, who voiced Darth Vader,
was not originally credited in the New Hope
or The Empire Strikes Back
because his dialog for both films
only took a few hours to record.
David Prowse, the six foot seven man
in the Darth Vader suit,
was credited because he spent months as Vader on set.
However, James Earl Jones's name was finally added
to the credits for Return of the Jedi.
- While shooting The Force Awakens,
a 63-year-old Mark Hamill,
who plays an old Luke Skywalker,
was the same age as Sir Alec Guinness, 63,
when he played the original Ben Kenobi
in the first Star Wars.
- To create the hologram of Princess Leia saying,
"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope,"
they played the footage of her
back through an old analog TV,
and then they wiggled the cord
so that it would appear all fuzzy and staticy
and have lines through it.
They then filmed that staticy TV with another camera.
- Before making The Force Awakens,
Disney bought Lucasfilm back in 2012
for over $4 billion.
George Lucas, who owned 100% of the Lucasfilm empire,
donated most of it to charity.
- For both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi,
Sir Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan,
was able to film all of his scenes in just one day each,
as opposed to the rest of the cast who would have
spent months filming on sets around the world.
- Have you ever wondered what Mark Hamill
has been up to for the past 30 years?
Well, you might not have seen his face much.
That's actually because he's a very successful voice actor,
most well known as the voice
of the animated Joker since 1992.
- Carrie Fisher was asked if she wanted a stunt double
for the shots where she kills Jabba the Hut.
She said that she really wanted to do it herself
and that it was the best time she had as an actor.
- The droids in The Force Awakens were actually made
by hardcore Star Wars fans who were part of a fan club
called The R2-D2 Builders Club.
The president of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy,
met them at a fan event and commissioned them herself
to work on the droids for Episode VII.
- The name Ewok was never actually spoken
during any of the Star Wars films.
The word "Ewok" mostly became well known
due to the merchandising, the animated television series,
and two made-for-TV movies.
- Ben Burtt, the sound designer for all six Star Wars films,
is credited with coming up with the original sound effects
for the lightsaber, R2-D2, and more.
He also provides the voice for another famous robot, Wall-E.
- In 1983's Return of the Jedi,
88-year-old Emperor Palpatine
was played by Scottish actor Ian McDiarmid,
who was only 38 years old at the time,
wearing heavy prosthetics and makeup.
16 years later, in 1999,
McDiarmid, who was then 54 years old,
again played the Emperor in Episodes I through III,
except this time he was considerably older
playing a much younger version of the same character.
- There's a popular myth that states that Darth Vader
got his name from the German "vater" meaning father.
While it is a wonderful coincidence,
he actually got his name from a creative play
on the words "dark invader."
- In A New Hope, there's a scene where a number
of stormtroopers enter a room on the Death Star
and the tallest stormtrooper actually hits his head
on the ceiling as he enters the room.
As a nod to this mistake, the filmmakers added a scene
in Attack of the Clones where Jango Fett,
who was the original host of the cloned troopers,
hits his head while entering his ship.
- For the famous line, "I am your father"
uttered by Darth Vader,
George Lucas wanted to make sure
that spoilers didn't leak from the set,
so the official shooting script
actually contained a different plot twist:
"Obi-Wan killed your father."
The real line was voiced after by James Earl Jones
and added in post-production.
- In Return of the Jedi, George Lucas wanted to have
the Empire defeated by a tribe of primitive Wookiees.
When it was pointed out that Chewbacca
was a technologically proficient Wookiee,
they decided to change the species.
Because Wookiees were tall,
they made the Ewoks short.
They even took the word Woo-kiee and flipped it.
E-wok.
- The Star Wars movies use certain colors
to help the viewer know what they're looking at.
The heroes' ships usually have red lasers,
while the villains' ships usually have green.
Also, in Episode II, the heroes' missiles
all shoot with white smoke,
while the villains' missiles shoot with black.
- In The Empire Strikes Back,
when Luke clashes with Darth Vader,
there is a shot where Vader falls out of the frame
and Luke jumps down after him.
If you look in the lower left corner of the frame,
you can see Mark Hamill bounce back up
on a trampoline into the shot
and look directly into the camera.
- The Podrace scene in Episode I
was entirely digitally created for the film
because nowhere on Earth looks like that,
and even if it did, there no cameras
that can travel fast enough to convey the race.
That's because pods are meant to be racing
at over 966 kilometers per hour,
or 600 miles per hour.
- Star Wars: Episode V and Episode VI
were not actually directed by George Lucas.
After completing A New Hope,
George went to his old instructor
from the University of Southern California
and convinced him to direct The Empire Strikes Back.
That's director Irvin Kershner.
- Famous actress Keira Knightley was in Episode I.
She was the handmaiden that pretends
to be the queen to keep Padme safe.
- While on the set in Northern Africa
filming the desert scenes,
the script originally had Luke's last name as Starkiller.
George Lucas changed it to Skywalker
as the production headed to England
before filming the rest of the movie.
As an homage to this,
J.J. Abrams named a new superweapon
Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens.
- Christopher Lee,
who played Count Dooku in Episodes II and III,
holds the Guinness World Record for the most
films with a sword fight by an actor.