Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) is an adventure/fantasy movie directed by Irvin Kershner and written by George Lucas. The movie stars Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, David Prowse, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker, Frank Oz and Alec Guinness in lead roles. John Williams composed music of the film. The film was produced by Lucasfilm Ltd. and distributed by 20th century fox. The film was released on 20th June, 1980 in US and had a runtime of 124 minutes. It was made under a budget of $18-33 million and grossed $540 million worldwide.
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) is set after the events of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977). The Galactic Empire, under the leadership of Darth Vader, is in pursuit of Luke Skywalker and rest rebel alliance (Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca) across the galaxy. While Luke studies the ways of force under Jedi Master Yoda.
We have put together a list of interesting facts and details about the movie Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980).
Let’s have a look.
24. Luke retrieving his lightsaber in ice cave was shot backwards!
In the Ice Cave scene Luke Skywalker uses his Jedi powers to retrieve the lightsaber from a distance. This scene was achieved by having actor Mark Hamill (Luke) throw the lightsaber away and then running the film backwards.
23. Princess Leia was way shorter than Han Solo!
Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) stood on a box for majority of her scene with Harrison Ford (Han Solo). Fisher is (5’1) one foot shorter than Ford (6’1).
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22. George Lucas wanted Yoda to get an Oscar nomination!
George Lucas spent thousands of dollars on advertising Oscar campaign for Frank Oz’s performance as Yoda. George tried to get him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The campaign failed as it was felt that Yoda wasn’t an actor but a puppeteer. George Lucas thought of this as an unfair decision against Frank Oz, who actually didn’t mind at all.
21. Han Solo weild the lightsaber and he was no Jedi knight!
Han Solo weilds a lightsaber to cut open the tauntaun’s belly. This makes him the only non-jedi ever to weild a lightsaber in entire original Trilogy. Han Solo uses the trick to save Luke and keep him warm in the freezing temperature as he cut open the belly of a tauntaun. It is actually an Indian trick. According to a true story, an Indian hunter killed a bear just before a deadly blizzard. He cut open bear’s stomach and stayed inside warm and safe until the storm stopped.
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20. There were shoes and potato in asteroid scene!
In the original cut of the asteroid scene, there was a shoe placed as asteroid. The rumor was that George Lucas asked the special effects team to redo the scene many times. One of the crew member got annoyed and threw in his shoe. This error was corrected later in remastered version. There is also a potato placed as asteroid. It is seen just as Millennium Falcon first enters the field, and two asteroid gets past of Falcon, a third one appears. This is the potato.
21. Amazon Basin people speak the Jedi language!
Very few languages on Earth is similar to Yoda’s iconic manner of speech. Yoda’s sentences has the parts of speech in Object Subject verb order. Most of the few people using this manner of speech are based in the Amazon river basin.
18. Darth Vader’s meditation chamber was hyperbaric!
Darth Vader is shown meditating in his meditation chamber. The chamber is said to be a hyperbaric chamber which charges the interior air to greater than one atmospheric pressure. This allows Vader to breath normally without his helmet. All of this was not originally presented in the film. The film features Vader in meditation chamber putting up his mask only for a second.
17. Carbon Freezing chamber fight scene was shot without Darth Vader’s helmet!
The iconic fight scene in carbon freezing chamber tends to focus on Luke rather than Darth Vader. The helmet made it difficult for Bob Anderson (Vader’s body double) to breath. Many shots were filmed without helmet which is why scene mainly focuses on Luke. There is only one scene of Darth Vader and C3PO together. They are only seen together onscreen in Carbon Freezing Chamber scene.
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