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Film 1000: Star Wars

Trivia: According to Mark Hamill, studio executives were unhappy that Chewbacca has no clothes and attempted to have the costume redesigned with shorts.

Stunt doubles were not used for the scene in which Luke and Leia swing to safety. Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill performed that stunt themselves, shooting it in just one take.

Alec Guinness always recalled the experience of making the movie as a bad one, and consistently claimed that it was his idea to have his character killed in the first film, so he "wouldn't have to carry on saying these rubbish lines". Reportedly because he hated working on Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope so much, Alec Guinness claims that Obi-Wan's death was his idea as a means to limit his involvement in the film. Guinness also claimed to throw away all Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope related fan mail without even opening it. Contrary to this, George Lucas has said he made the decision to kill off Kenobi, that Guinness was "less than happy" his character was dying earlier than expected, and that Guinness appeared to enjoy his time on set. While Alec Guinness made no secret that he disliked the dialogue in George Lucas's script, he claimed that he accepted the role for two reasons: 1). He was an admirer of Lucas' previous film American Graffiti and 2). The narrative compelled him to read the whole script through to the end, in spite of not liking the dialogue and not being a fan of science fiction.

George Lucas planned to score the film with existing classical music like Stanley Kubrick had done on 2001: A Space Odyssey before Steven Spielberg introduced him to composer John Williams. Lucas and Williams agreed on a classical 19th-century Romantic music style with liberal use of leitmotif for the score. Since the movie would show worlds never seen before, the music had to serve as an "emotional anchor" for the audience to relate.

WILHELM SCREAM: The film revived and re-popularized the "Wilhelm Scream" sound effect, first used in Distant Drums.

Interested in creating a modest line of colorful space toys, Kenner Toys signed on for the merchandising shortly before Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope opened, although they did not believe the movie would be a hit. When Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope became a hit, they were unprepared to handle the demand and produce enough Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope toys to handle the demand for Christmas. Instead, they sold boxed vouchers for various toys. The toys sold in the "Empty Box" campaign during December were not delivered until the following March.

George Lucas based the character of Han Solo on his friend, director Francis Ford Coppola.

George Lucas and the production team apparently had a series of running battles with the studio cleaning service, which would continually clean and buff the floors on set, even though Lucas had requested that they leave them scuffed and dull - part of his idea that the world the characters inhabit should look "lived in". After the sets were constructed, George Lucas went through them and had every single one of them "dirtied up". The R2-D2s were all rolled in the dirt, nicked with a saw, and kicked around a bit. George Lucas popularized the concept of giving sets/props/etc. a "dirtied up" appearance, to create the illusion that they were old and worn. However, he was not the first person to use this strategy. Over a decade prior, Gerry Anderson had extensively used this process in his Supermarionation series, most notably Thunderbirds.

Terri Nunn of the band Berlin was in the running for the role of Princess Leia and had readings with Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill.

When 20th Century Fox attempted to distribute the film in the U.S., fewer than 40 theaters agreed to show it. As a solution, Fox threatened that any cinema that refused to show Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope would not be given the rights to screen the potential blockbuster The Other Side of Midnight (which ended up grossing less than 10% of what Star Wars did).

George Lucas originally prepared a 14-page story treatment for his space opera. The major studios all rejected it because they viewed it as science fiction which was very difficult to market at the time. Lucas did find one sympathetic ear - Alan Ladd Jr., the then new head of 20th Century Fox, who had been impressed with Lucas's efforts on American Graffiti. It was Ladd who eventually greenlit the movie, to the tune of an $8,000,000 budget.

On the first day of filming in the deserts of Tunisia, the country experienced its first major rainstorm in 50 years.

Carrie Fisher's breasts were taped down with gaffer tape, as her costume did not permit any lingerie to be worn underneath. She joked later, "As we all know, there is no underwear in space."

The lightsaber sound effect is a combination of the hum of an idling 35mm movie projector and the feedback generated by passing a stripped microphone cable by a television.

George Lucas originally wanted Orson Welles to do Darth Vader's voice, but decided against it, feeling that Welles' voice would be too recognizable.

When the storm troopers enter the room where C-3PO and R2-D2 are hiding, one of the actors accidentally bumps his head on the doorway due to his limited visibility. When the Special Edition came out in 1997, a sound effect had been added to the scene to accompany the head bump.

The targeting grid used for the Millennium Falcon's canon is based on a paperweight George Lucas saw on Arthur C. Clarke's desk.

Denis Lawson, who played Wedge Antilles (his name is misspelt in the credits as "Dennis Lawson"), is the uncle of Ewan McGregor, who plays Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequels. See also Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi.

George Lucas waived the normal writer/director fee and asked for a mere $175,000 plus 40% of the merchandising rights. After the failure of _Doctor Dolittle (1967)_, when its massive merchandising push proved an equally costly debacle, studio executives saw little if any profit from such matters and , agreed. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope related merchandise has since generated many millions of dollars in sales, allowing Lucas to make movies completely independent of the studio system he decried. Merchandising rights are now a major part of any film contract.

The music by John Williams is ranked #1 on AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores.

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.

Darth Vader has only 12 minutes of screen time.

The horned alien seen in the Cantina sequence was originally a devil mask created by Rick Baker for a Halloween show.