Star Wars Day – May the 4th be with you

May the force be with you.

If you’re not familiar with that iconic line, you must have been living under a rock for the past three decades. Star Wars is so famous that it’s referenced everywhere. So even if you hadn’t seen it, you’d still know about it. In books. In memes. In spoofs. In humor sites. In TV shows.

Okay I have a confession to make. Even though I went gaga over Anakin Skywalker when Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith came out, I had never seen the original trilogy before. Cue in this reaction:

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That was a scene from my favorite sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Star Wars is the all-time-favorite movie of the male leads in the show, so there are so many references to it. There was even one episode titled “Trilogy Time” which showed how the boys like the original trilogy so much that they make it a point to “tril it up big time” every three years (they rewatch the three movies, in case that wasn’t clear).

It is all these references, in fact, that finally made me challenge myself to “tril it up big time” before Star Wars day was up. Star Wars day is on May 4, as in May the fourth (force) be with you. Get it?

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I’m proud to report that I have done so. Yay! I enjoyed watching the films and was kept on the edge of my seat for some scenes and yelled at some of the characters during others. I loved the galaxy that Lucas had made up, what a great imagination! And even though I already knew what was going to happen, I still teared up at that scene when Darth Vader died. Waaaahhhh.

And I am so happy that I can finally understand all the references now. LOL. Next up: Lord of the Rings! (Yes I haven’t seen that trilogy either. Please don’t judge me.)

But first, I think I’ll rewatch the prequel trilogy. Then maybe watch both trilogies again right before Star Wars VII comes out in 2015. You did know they’re making it, right? And that the original trinity (Luke Skywalker, Princess Lea, Han Solo) have all been signed on to be in it? Read all about it here.

I’ll end this blog with some interesting Star Wars trivia that I found on IMDB:

When first released in 1977, this movie was simply titled “Star Wars”, as it was intended to be a stand-alone movie. Sequels were not considered until after it became wildly successful. The name of this movie was changed to “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” in 1981 to fit in better with the names of the other films. The later print was the first one to be released on mass market video (an earlier Betamax release did not have the subtitle), and all video, laserdisc or DVD releases have featured the subtitles. The theatrical cut DVDs, released in September 2006, were the first time that the original opening crawl, without subtitle, has been released on home video. The reason George Lucas created the title card “Episode IV” in the first film was as a homage to 1940’s Saturday afternoon “cliffhanger” serials, like the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. He also used the “text crawl” the same way each of those series opened up new chapters. He did not at the time have Episodes I, II, and III already planned. In fact, at one point, 20th Century Fox wanted the “Episode IV” title removed so as not to confuse moviegoers. There are some prints of the film that do not have that title card.

The original name of the main character in this film was Luke Starkiller, and that was the character’s name when filming began in Tunisia. Later, when filming moved to Elstree Studios in London, George Lucas had second thoughts and changed the name to Skywalker. This did not cause a problem, as Luke’s last name had not been used in the scenes already shot.

The shootout between Han Solo and Greedo inside the Cantina was the subject for a lot of controversy and debate among Star Wars fans as to who shot first. Many fans debated that Greedo actually shot first a split second before Solo did, but with careful examination of the scene, it was obvious that Greedo never fired his shot at all. For the 1997 Special Edition release of this movie, George Lucas had edited the scene to include Greedo shooting first at Solo at point blank range, with Solo moving his head slightly to the right to dodge the shot before firing back at Greedo. The shooting scene was edited for a third time for the 2004 DVD release, so that both Greedo and Han Solo fired their guns more or less at the same time.

The entire sequence with the Wampa attack was designed to explain the difference in appearance of Mark Hamill, who had been in involved in a car accident in between shooting and had a large chunk of his nose missing. Noticeably, Kershner does not show much of Hamill’s nose before the Wampa attack. The scene, however, was part of the story before Hamill’s accident.

The film’s most famous line is often misquoted. While many believe that Darth Vader says, “Luke, I am your father.” He actually says, “No, I am your father.”

George Lucas was so determined that the ending be kept secret that he had David Prowse (Darth Vader) say “Obi-Wan killed your father”, and dubbed it later to be “I am your father”. In fact, only five people eventually knew about the ending before the film’s release: George Lucas (came up with the idea in his second draft, after the death of Leigh Brackett), director Irvin Kershner (informed of such during story conferences), writer Lawrence Kasdan (also informed during story and script conferences), Mark Hamill (informed shortly before the shooting of the infamous scene), and James Earl Jones (told during the recording sessions for the final dub, and whom himself believed that Vader was lying).

Carrie Fisher complained about her costumes in the previous two movies. She said they were so long, you could not tell “she was a woman”. Those complaints led to the skimpy outfit she wore as Jabba’s prisoner. The costume became something of a running joke among the crew, because the metal framework that held the top together meant that the costume didn’t move well with her. Since Fisher didn’t like the industry standard solution of using double-sided tape, it became necessary before each take to have a wardrobe person check to ensure that her breasts were still snug inside the costume top (and several scenes had to be re-shot when “wardrobe malfunctions” occurred).

In the most recent special edition, the force-ghost of Anakin Skywalker portrayed by Sebastian Shaw is replaced with one by Hayden Christensen from Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. George Lucas felt the force-ghost should represent Anakin as he was before he succumbed to the Dark Side. Also, in “Sith”, Anakin was horribly burned and lost both legs and his right hand, an aspect added after the original trilogy. Despite the explanation by Lucas, or perhaps because of it, many fans were outraged over the change and wrote angry letters to Lucas.