98 Fun Facts About Star Wars: a New Hope

On what date did Star Wars open in US cinemas?

Star Wars opened on Wednesday, May 25, 1977, in just 32 theatres, timed for the Memorial Day weekend; lines around the block soon pushed Fox into a much wider release.

In which year's reissue did the film gain the subtitle Episode IV – A New Hope?

The April 1981 reissue was the first to carry 'Episode IV A New Hope' in the opening crawl, added after The Empire Strikes Back had opened as Episode V in 1980.

Which 1958 Akira Kurosawa film lent narrative beats to Lucas's early treatment?

The Hidden Fortress (1958) follows two bickering peasants escorting a princess and a general through enemy territory, a structure Lucas echoed with C-3PO and R2-D2, Leia and Obi-Wan.

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

Journal of the Whills was Lucas's two-page January 1973 synopsis about CJ Thorpe, apprentice to the 'Jedi-Bendu' Mace Windy; the Whills resurfaced in Rogue One's Guardians of the Whills.

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

Luke was Luke Starkiller through the fourth draft of January 1976 and into the first weeks of filming; Lucas switched to Skywalker during shooting, feeling Starkiller sounded too murderous.

Which studio executive greenlit Star Wars at Fox after United Artists and Universal passed?

Alan Ladd Jr., Fox's head of production, backed Star Wars after a screening of American Graffiti; Lucas later said Ladd 'invested in me, he did not invest in the movie'.

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

Al Pacino, hot from The Godfather, later said Star Wars 'was mine for the taking' but he turned it down because he could not understand the script; Harrison Ford got the part.

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

Peter Cushing, the Hammer horror star, was considered for Obi-Wan before being cast as Grand Moff Tarkin; his boots hurt, so he played many scenes in carpet slippers, framed 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?

Peter Mayhew was a hospital orderly at King's College Hospital in London when Lucas, who had seen his photo as the Minotaur in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, met him and cast him.

Why did Lucas replace the voice of the actor inside the Vader suit with James Earl Jones?

Jones went uncredited as Vader in the films until 1983, though he was credited in the 1978 Holiday Special.

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

The droid's name reportedly came from editor Walter Murch asking for 'Reel 2, Dialog 2' during work on American Graffiti.

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

The Lars homestead interiors were shot at the Hotel Sidi Driss, a troglodyte pit-hotel in Matmata; principal photography had begun in March 1976 at the Chott el Djerid salt flat.

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

Tikal's temples rising from the Guatemalan jungle stood in for the rebel base on Yavin 4; the crew reportedly chose it after seeing a poster of the ruins in a travel agency.

The motion-control camera system developed for the film's effects became known as what?

The Dykstraflex, built by John Dykstra's team at Industrial Light & Magic, moved the camera in repeatable computer-controlled passes around static models, which made the dogfights possible; it earned an Academy Scientific and Engineering Award.

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?

Lucas described the redesigned Falcon as a hamburger with the cockpit as an olive on the side; in the story it is a YT-1300 Corellian light freighter that Han won from Lando Calrissian.

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

Colin Cantwell built the first Death Star model in 1975 along with prototypes of the X-wing, TIE fighter and Star Destroyer; his designs were later refined by the model shop at Industrial Light & Magic.

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

Obi-Wan and Luke find Han in the Mos Eisley cantina, the 'wretched hive of scum and villainy' on Tatooine; the scene's alien crowd was expanded with extra shots filmed in Los Angeles in early 1977.

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 opening crawl from six paragraphs to four sentences?

Brian De Palma, after mocking the rough cut's crawl, sat down with critic Jay Cocks and rewrote it into the terse four sentences that open the film; Spielberg, by contrast, loved the rough cut.

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

Lucas cut in black-and-white World War II dogfight footage where the X-wing and TIE fighter shots would go; most effects were unfinished, and Vader spoke with Prowse's voice.

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 recorded the score at Anvil Studios in Denham over twelve days in March 1977; the double album reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200.

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.

How many competitive Academy Awards did Star Wars win?

Star Wars won six competitive Oscars, for art direction, costume design, film editing, original score, sound and visual effects, and Ben Burtt took a Special Achievement Award; it lost Best Picture to Annie Hall.

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

Alec Guinness was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, the film's only acting nomination; George Lucas was nominated for both directing and original screenplay, and Gary Kurtz as producer for Best Picture.

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 company alone accepted the Star Wars toy licence before release, causing the 'empty box' Christmas of 1977?

Kenner took the licence Mego had passed on, but could not make figures in time, so its Early Bird Certificate Package was an empty-box voucher redeemable for four action figures between February and June 1978.

Who ghostwrote the novelization credited to George Lucas, published before the film?

Alan Dean Foster ghostwrote Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, published under Lucas's name in November 1976; he also wrote Splinter of the Mind's Eye as a cheap sequel in case the film flopped.

Which cinema hosted the first public screening of Star Wars, on May 1, 1977?

The first public screening was a sneak preview at the Northpoint Theatre, San Francisco, on May 1, 1977, the same cinema where American Graffiti had been tested; the crowd reaction convinced Fox it had a hit.

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

Sorcerer, Friedkin's remake of The Wages of Fear, took over Mann's Chinese on June 24, 1977, under a prior booking; when it flopped, Star Wars returned there 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 the film?

The stock effect dates from the 1951 film Distant Drums and is thought to be voiced by singer Sheb Wooley.

Which future Star Wars regular, uncle of Ewan McGregor, played Red Two, Wedge Antilles?

Denis Lawson, miscredited as 'Dennis Lawson', played Wedge in all three original films; his nephew Ewan McGregor went on to play the young Obi-Wan in the prequels.

Star Wars was among the first 25 films chosen for the National Film Registry in which year?

Star Wars entered the National Film Registry in 1989 among the first 25 selections, alongside Citizen Kane and Casablanca; the Library of Congress keeps a print from the 1977 copyright deposit rather than the Special Edition.

Which two actors were cast as R2-D2 and Chewbacca largely because of their height?

Kenny Baker, 3 feet 8 inches, fitted inside R2-D2, and 7-foot-3 Peter Mayhew filled the Chewbacca suit; Mayhew modelled the Wookiee's manner on animals he watched at the zoo.

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 actor was considered for Obi-Wan before Alec Guinness was cast?

Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa's leading man, was approached for Obi-Wan; his daughter Mika later said he declined for fear that a science-fiction film's effects would cheapen the samurai image.

At which English studio were the film's interior sets built and shot?

EMI Elstree Studios in Borehamwood housed the interiors, with the production taking over all nine sound stages for the Death Star corridors, the cantina and the Falcon; Lucas returned there for the sequels.

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 in California supplied pickup shots in January 1977, including R2-D2's lonely canyon trek, the Tusken Raiders' lookout and the bantha played by an elephant in costume.

What originally scheduled release date did production delays push back to mid-1977?

The cast and crew largely expected a flop; instead the delayed film became the first to gross $500 million worldwide.

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

The accident came late in production, one of several setbacks that also saw the crew split into three units to finish on time.

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.

What did the film's total budget finally reach, up from the $8M it started with?

Fox had first granted only $5 million in 1975; Alan Ladd Jr. had to release an extra $50,000 near the end to finish.

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.