Think you’re a really big Star Wars fan? Know more than other scruffy nerf herders about what happened a long time ago in that galaxy far, far away? Sure, maybe you know Luke‘s original last name was Starkiller, but do you know how The Force Awakens pays homage to it? Are you positive you know why Anakin‘s Sith name was “Vader?” Don’t be so sure about that.
Matthew Santoro, with help from his friend and huge Star Wars fan, Corey Vidal, have put together “50 Amazing Facts About Star Wars” to show you, that with a whole galaxy of interesting tidbits and three decades worth of story to unearth, there’s always more to learn about this space fantasy dreamed up by George Lucas.
With so many great pieces of information here, it’s hard to put together a list of the best or most surprising, so here are some that we found especially interesting.
#4—James Earl Jones was not originally credited for either A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back because he only needed a few hours to record his lines. He did get a credit for Return of the Jedi.
#5—63-year-old Mark Hamill was the same age while filming The Force Awakens as Sir Alec Guinness was when he filmed the original Star Wars.
#12 (& 18)—”Ewok” was never actually said in Return of the Jedi, the name was learned from merchandising. The original plan was to have a wookiee army fight on the forest moon of Endor, but when the change was made, the ewoks were made small in contrast to the oversized wookiees, and the C-3PO-idolizing little guys got their name from flipping around the name “wook-iee” to “e-wok.”
#17—In an attempt to avoid spoilers (an eternal battle, apparently), the shooting script actually had Darth Vader telling Luke that Obi-Wan killed his father. It was only changed when James Earl Jones recorded his lines in post-production. (That sure would have made some of those Force ghost conversations awkward.)
#42—Yeah, you’re right, Chewbacca doesn’t look like he has aged much in 30 years. That’s because wookiees tend to live over 400 years, and Chewie is only about 200-years-old.
#45—Boba Fett made a big impact with very few words. Everything he said in the original trilogy could fit into one tweet. Probably because brevity is the soul of wit….and being a badass.
These are just a few of the many great facts they pulled together, from various sources not always available on the internet. Which reminds me, if you liked this, you know what’s twice as good as 50 facts about Star Wars? No, literally, what is 50 times two? Yes, 100. So don’t forget our own Dan Casey wrote 100 Things Star Wars Fan Should Know and Do Before They Die, which I can personally attest is full of incredible facts you don’t know.
What did you learn here that you thought was really amazing? Hit the hyperdrive and get into our comments section below to let us know.
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Images: Lucasfilm
