Star Wars - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[ava]

The horned alien seen in the Cantina sequence was originally a devil mask created by Rick Baker for a Halloween show.

[fred]

George Lucas cited the Legend of King Arthur as one of his inspirations behind Star Wars.

[carl]

All of the dialogue by Shelagh Fraser (Aunt Beru) was dubbed.

[javier]

Portions of the sound effects for the Millennium Falcon's engines were recorded at an air show at the Experimental Aircraft Association's annual convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. In a gesture of thanks, Lucasfilm donated a model of the Falcon to the EAA Air Museum. Coincidentally, Harrison Ford served as the chairman of the Young Eagles program at the museum.

[terry]

The T-16 skyhopper model Luke plays with in the garage is actually an early prototype model made by Colin Cantwell.

[michele]

The cantina creature, later to be known as "Dice Ibegon", was really nothing more than a hand puppet known as the "Drooling arm". This was because it was fashioned to have a red, oozy liquid drip from its mouth. When they tried this on film however, the liquid spurted all over the place and the shot was judged to be too disgusting for a PG movie.

[claude]

Mark Hamill stated the blue milk was "life-long milk" with "additives they put blue food colouring in it, and it was really ghastly. Oily and sweet and euch! Triggered your gag reflex. But I said, 'Look if they gave me blue milk, you bet I'm going to drink it on camera, because what other chance am I going to get?' So there's an indication that I'm an underrated actor, I gulped it and acted like I liked it without vomiting.

[manuel]

George Lucas described Peter Mayhew as "a very gentle giant, very sweet, very easy to get along with. He was more like a Wookie than I originally imagined a Wookie to be. Originally, I envisioned Chewie as some big ferocious beast, but Peter's Chewie wasn't really ferocious. No matter how hard he tried, he wasn't ferocious. He would be your best friend until he got angry, then stand back. He was like my dogs. They're great, they're fluffy, they're wonderful until you get near their food."

[morris]

C-3PO erroneously refers to his new master as "Sir Luke", the correct address for someone who has been knighted. Luke corrects him, but will eventually become a Jedi Knight, so the title is actually justified.

[amber]

Twentieth Century Fox bought the screenplay largely because George Lucas had hired conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie to create paintings of several scenes to help sell it.

[russell]

Prior to the release of this movie, the greatest profit Twentieth Century Fox had ever made in one year was $37 million. In 1977, because of this movie, their year-end profit was $79 million.

[bessie]

Initial research from Twentieth Century Fox using the title and a brief synopsis came back with the results that only males under twenty-five were interested in seeing the movie. Twentieth Century Fox then deliberately marketed this movie with a view to attracting older and female cinemagoers by pushing images of humans (including Princess Leia) centerstage, and referring to this movie in more mythic tones, rather than science fiction.

[nina]

The name "Luke" derives from the Greek word for "light", which fits into the movie's allegorical themes of light and darkness. The Biblical Apostle Luke was an early convert to Christianity, much like Luke Skywalker converting to the ways of a Jedi. In addition, the name "Luke" is also a derivative of the name "Lucas", as in George Lucas.

[melinda]

Several scenes were filmed of Luke with his friends on Tatooine, in an effort to introduce the main character earlier in the movie. First, Luke watches Princess Leia's ship battle with the Imperial cruiser in the sky overhead through his binoculars, and later he meets his best friend Biggs Darklighter in Anchorhead, who has left the Imperial Academy and plans to join the Rebel Alliance. Also present in the Anchorhead scenes were Anthony Forrest as Fixer and Koo Stark as Fixer's girlfriend Cammie. All e these scenes were later cut, leaving Luke's mention of Biggs to his aunt and uncle as the sole reference to his character early on. The scenes have never officially appeared in any release of the movie, but stills were included in "The Story of Star Wars" (a book-and-record set), and the scenes also appeared in the comic book and novel adaptations. This has led several people to believe they actually saw the scenes on the silver screen. All of the scenes were included on the CD-Rom "Star Wars: Behind the Magic" in 1998. A reunion scene between Luke and Biggs at the Rebel base was included in the Special Edition re-release of the movie. However, a line by Red Leader about having once met Luke's father was cut from this exchange. All of these scenes were fortunately included as bonus material on the 2011 Blu-Ray boxed set.

[miriam]

German audiences usually laugh at the scene where R2-D2 is being stunned by the Jawa. This is due to the sounds that the Jawa utters afterwards. They resemble "Gute Idee!" which is German for "Good idea!"

[ava]

Industrial Light & Magic spent most of the production period in chaos, attempting to create special effects that had never been created before. They blew half their budget on four shots which George Lucas rejected. Ultimately, around $5 million of the $8 million budget was spent by Industrial Light & Magic.

[manuel]

The signature music in the Cantina pays homage to Duke Ellington's accompaniment to the Mills Brother's Digga Digga Doo (1932). The signature phrase can be heard at the 2:30 mark in the Mills Brother's recording.

[frances]

During production, George Lucas and Gilbert Taylor, whom Gary Kurtz called "old school" and "crotchety", had disputes over filming. With a background in independent filmmaking, Lucas was accustomed to creating most of the elements of the movie himself. His lighting suggestions were rejected by an offended Taylor, who felt that Lucas was overstepping his boundaries by giving specific instructions, sometimes even moving lights and cameras himself. Taylor refused to use the soft-focus lenses and gauze Lucas wanted after Twentieth Century Fox executives complained about the look. Kurtz stated that "In a couple of scenes, rather than saying, 'It looks a bit over lit, can you fix that?', (Lucas would) say, 'turn off this light, and turn off that light', and Gil would say, 'No, I won't do that, I've lit it the way I think it should be. Tell me what's the effect that you want, and I'll make a judgment about what to do with my lights.'"