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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.