Today is a very special day! Exactly 45 years ago, the first ever Star Wars movie was released in American movie theathers! To celebrate this, let us take a look at some interesting yet fairly unknown facts about the movie franchise. So fair warning; the following probably won't make a lot of sense if you aren't at least familiar with Star Wars, however you may still get a good laugh out of some of it.
Yoda was almost played by a monkey. The original plan was to dress up a monkey in a costume and mask. They had even 'hired' a monkey for the part and started training it, and there are some very... interesting pictures of the monkey in a very hideous Yoda costume online. Seriously, look it up at your own peril. The reason why Yoda ended up being created with animatronics and a puppet instead, was because a crew member had previously worked on a movie where they used monkeys, and those had been a nightmare to work with. This was apparently enough to convince the filmmakers to fire the Yoda "actor". To add to the fun of Yoda, his full name in the original script was 'Minch Yoda', before being shortened to the 'Yoda' we are used to as it is a bit easier to say. But in the very, very early writing days, Yoda's original name was *insert drumroll* Buffy.
The first Star Wars movie was close to inciting a war. The scenes for the desert planet of Tatooine was filmed in Tunesia. Reportedly, the Tunisian government recieved threats from their neighbour country Libya that conflict was inevitable if they didn't remove a military vehicle from the border between the two countries. However, it turned out that the 'military vehicle' was actually a Jawa sandcrawler; a movie prop. The director obviously agreed to move it, as being what incited a war wouldn't be good press for the movie.
The actor playing Chewbacca had to have bodyguards to protect him from both bear hunters and people searching for Bigfoot. While filming over a longer period of time in the Redwood forests of Northern California, he had to be accompanied by crewmembers wearing brightly-coloured vests to protect him form hunters, as in costume, he could easily be mistaken for a bear. However, they also had to protect him form people searching the forest for Bigfoot, as it's apparently supposed to live somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
While the story was originally just rumors, the actor actually confirmed the truth of it himself on Reddit! Originally Luke Skywalker was supposed to turn evil and become the new villain wanting to rule the universe at the end of Episode 6. However, this idea was ulimately scrapped because the writers felt Luke going evil would be a bit too much for the kids the franchise was aimed at.
In The Last Jedi, there appear a lot of adorable Porgs, which is small, flat-muzzled bird creatures, in some of the scenes. These weren't originally a part of the script. The only reason they were added was because the Irish island where they filmed the scenes was full of puffins - and they weren't camera-shy at all. It wasn't possible to remove them or otherwise physically get rid of them, and it would have been an issue and a lot of work to remove them digitally, so the production team just decided to include them instead as an indeginous species to the local 'planet'.
There is a small island in Polynesia, that, according to the Los Angeles Times is the only palce on this planet where you can actually pay for goods and services with collectible Star Wars coins! However, the coins have to come from the 'New Zealand mint'. They all include a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the flip side, and a portrait of one of the Star Wars characters on the other side. Each coin is sold for around 20$ but only have a face value of 80 cents. So using them to buy anything is a pretty bad deal - however, it would make for a to tell frineds and family.
- And finally to round it all off, why did Episodes 4, 5 and 6 come out before 1, 2 and 3? Because in charge of directing, Yoda was.
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Yoda was almost played by a monkey. The original plan was to dress up a monkey in a costume and mask. They had even 'hired' a monkey for the part and started training it, and there are some very... interesting pictures of the monkey in a very hideous Yoda costume online. Seriously, look it up at your own peril. The reason why Yoda ended up being created with animatronics and a puppet instead, was because a crew member had previously worked on a movie where they used monkeys, and those had been a nightmare to work with. This was apparently enough to convince the filmmakers to fire the Yoda "actor".
The first Star Wars movie was close to inciting a war. The scenes for the desert planet of Tatooine was filmed in Tunesia. Reportedly, the Tunisian government recieved threats from their neighbour country Libya that conflict was inevitable if they didn't remove a military vehicle from the border between the two countries. However, it turned out that the 'military vehicle' was actually a Jawa sandcrawler; a movie prop. The director obviously agreed to move it, as being what incited a war wouldn't be good press for the movie.
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