The Empire Strikes Back - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[javier]

One of George Lucas' goals in doing a Star Wars sequel was to become financially independent from Hollywood, and he succeeded in this goal.

[claude]

Most of the rebel ground troops in the Hoth battle were Norwegian extras. Because they didn't speak any English, second unit director Peter MacDonald had to "act out" what he wanted them to do, by pointing in the direction of the "enemy" (which wasn't visible during shooting) and demonstrating the recoil motion he wanted for the blaster rifles.

[carl]

George Lucas had originally planned to only executively produce and finance the movie, leaving the directorial duties in the hands of Irvin Kershner and day-to-day producing duties to Gary Kurtz. Directing Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) had left Lucas exhausted and sick, and he had intended to take time off to start to focus on the expansion of the Lucasfilm company and spending more time with his then-wife Marcia Lucas, so that they could start a family and finish construction on Skywalker Ranch. However, when production on this movie ran overbudget and behind schedule, Lucas had to step in and take a more hands-on role, going on location to oversee filming and even directing portions of the movie. A disastrous rough cut of the movie proved to be incoherent during screenings, and facing the possibility of financial ruin, Lucas then re-edited the movie himself with even worse results. Extensive re-shoots and further post-production effects work put enormous strain on his health, his marriage, and his relationships with Kershner and Kurtz. Though the movie proved to be an enormous critical and commercial success, Lucas would never work with Kurtz again, and his marriage dissolved a couple of years later.

[wesley]

The opening Twentieth Century Fox fanfare music was specially re-recorded for the movie by John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra (unlike the first movie, which used the original recorded version from 1954). George Lucas specifically requested the longer version of the fanfare for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), which Twentieth Century Fox used for its CinemaScope productions during the 1950s, even though it had been replaced by a shorter version by 1977.

[kyle]

In each Star Wars movie, the line "I have a bad feeling about this" is spoken by one of the characters. In this movie, Leia says it.

[frederick]

The sound of R2-D2 moving was produced by recording the sound of a car window motor in operation.

[willard]

During principal photography, it remained unclear if Sir Alec Guinness would return as Obi-wan Kenobi, as he had just had an eye operation at the time. He finally did agree and worked just one day on the movie (Wednesday, September 5, 1979). He arrived at 8.30 a.m. and completed his scenes by 1 p.m., for which he was paid a quarter of a percentage point of the movie's gross, which was worth millions of dollars.

[nora]

Joe Johnston: The director of movies The Rocketeer (1991), Jurassic Park III (2001), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) worked on visual and art effects for this movie. He has a cameo as a Rebel in Echo Base before the Rebels evacuate.

[christina]

Part of the reason for creating Lando as a black character was that George Lucas had considered making Han Solo a black man early in his development of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).

[tamara]

Second unit director John Barry joined this movie after quitting Saturn 3 (1980) following a dispute with Kirk Douglas. Barry died of meningitis during production after collapsing on-set.

[tamara]

Carrie Fisher traveled to the filming location of Finse, Norway, even though she was not scheduled to take part in any outdoor scenes. She did it in order to spend time with the cast and crew.

[ella]

This is arguably the only movie of the original trilogy in which Darth Vader serves as the chief antagonist. In Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983), Darth Vader serves as Grand Moff Tarkin's and Emperor Palpatine's henchman, while in this movie he is free to do whatever he wants, including attacking Hoth, capturing the Millennium Falcon, torturing Han Solo, and placing Solo in carbonate.