May the Fourth be with you each year on National Star Wars Day. Or is it, “May the force be with you?” It all depends on whether you like using puns or not.
- Star Wars fans didn’t first introduce the often quoted phrase on May 4th. It was 1979, and Britain elected the first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. On May 4th, the day she took office, the Conservative Party placed an advertisement in The London Evening News, which read, “May the Fourth Be with You, Maggie. Congratulations.”
- Star Wars creator, George Lucas, was asked during a 2005 interview on a German news TV channel to say the famous sentence “May the Force Be with You.” Upon doing so, the interpreter interpreted the sentence into German as Am4 Mai sind wir bei Ihnen (On May 4 we are with you). TV Total captured this and aired it on May 18, 2005.
- Star Wars, an epic space opera written and directed by George Lucas, premiered in 1977 and became an almost instant cult classic. Even today, 43 years later, Star Wars remains one of the most financially successful films of all time.
- The first celebration of May 4th took place at the Toronto Underground Cinema in 2001. This first official Star Wars Day’s festivities included a costume contest and a movie marathon. Fans’ favorite parodies of the franchise were also enjoyed, as were some of the most popular mash-ups and remixes.
- R2-D2 once spoke English, and was kind of a jerk. The R2-D2 we all know and love from the Star Wars movies speaks only in beeps and whistles, a robot language that most of his friends can understand. But in the original draft of Star Wars, written in 1974, R2-D2 spoke in complete sentences.
- Luke Skywalker was almost a girl. A long time ago (January 1975, to be exact) a fledgling screenwriter named George Lucas was working on the second draft of an epic sci-fi space opera he called “Adventures of the Starkiller, Episode One: The Star Wars.” Of the many, many problems was the serious lack of female characters. So, Lucas did something radical: rewrote his story’s main character, Luke Starkiller, as an 18-year-old girl. Star Wars wouldn’t get a female lead until nearly forty years later.
- Han Solo died in the original script. The original ending of Return of The Jedi has Luke assuming Darth Vader’s role as evil Galactic enforcer, and Han Solo dying in his heroic raid on the Death Star.
- The trash in the Death Star garbage compactor scene was REAL. Apparently, the smell was so bad that Mark Hamill burst a blood vessel from trying to hold his breath, and the camera angle had to be adjusted for the rest of the scene so as not to show his injury.
- The original Return of the Jedi ending saw Luke Skywalker turn evil.
- Samuel L. Jackson had his lightsaber engraved with a bad word.
- Chewbacca had to be protected from bear hunters.
- Nobody says the word “Ewok” at any point in Return of the Jedi.
- Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan’s communicator is actually a lady’s razor.
- Yoda’s original name was Buffy.
- There’s a small South Pacific island that accepts Star Wars coins as legal tender.
- The phrase “I have a bad feeling about this” is said in every film.
- Every Star Wars film has been released the week after George Lucas’ birthday on May 14.
- Orson Welles Was Almost Darth Vader. George Lucas originally wanted Orson Welles as the voice of Darth Vader, but dropped the idea when he thought Welles’s famous baritone would be too recognizable.
- James Earl Jones Put In Less Than A Day’s Work. Lucas chose Jones as the voice of Darth Vader because of the actor’s unmistakable baritone. He was given only $7500 for his services, and completed all of his lines in two and a half hours.
- Peter Cushing, who played Grand Moff Tarkin, found his costume boots so uncomfortable that he wore slippers during many of his scenes, and insisted his feet just never be in the shots.
- No physical clone trooper outfits were actually produced for the films. Every clone trooper seen in the Star Wars films was created with CGI.
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