Where there's a Star Wars film, there's a making of booking and Revenge of the Sith is no exception. J.M. Rinzler has done a few of these now but I happened to come across his Making of the Revenge of the Sith and found some cool stories worth sharing.
According to Rick McCallum’s introduction to the book it was while directing an episode of Young Indianna Jones that George Lucas got it into his head that he might be up for directing again.
This eventually spilled over into the prequels, of which George directed all three.
We think the coolest idea that got nixed was a young Han solo turning up to help Yoda out. Read on for more details!
We think the coolest idea that got nixed was a young Han solo turning up to help Yoda out. Read on for more details!
A Revenge of the Sith scene was filmed during Attack of the Clones
The ROTS scene where Obi-Wan Kenobi hands over young Luke to Owen Lars was filmed 5 years before during filming for Attack of the Clones.
This was done to avoid having to go back and re-film the Skywalker moisture farm, thus saving on production costs (and also guarantying that the same actors would be available).
Bobba Fett, where?
George Lucas considered putting a teenage Bobba Fett caught up in the Clone Wars.
Given Darth Vader's hands were chopped off by Obi-Wan, Vader is unable to use Sith Force Lightning. Which probably makes sense.
Lucas was pretty serious about this idea, you can see he ordered a concept design to be drawn up of the young Han Solo.
We think this was a good move to cut the character - it was almost already too cute that Yoda knew Chewbacca as part of the Clone Wars.
Lucas revealed something cool about Force lightning during filming
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| Young Han Solo cut from Sith |
A young Han Solo was to play a small part
At one point Lucas had scripted a ten year old Han Solo would have had a role. Han would have assisted Yoda in tracking the fleeing General Grevious.
This would have occurred on Kashyyyk and would have also meant that Chewbacca and Han would have already established their relationship.
We think this was a good move to cut the character - it was almost already too cute that Yoda knew Chewbacca as part of the Clone Wars.
On Mustapha
Lucas long carried the idea of Ben Kenobi confronting Vader on a volcano. He tried to get the volcano idea into Return of the Jedi at one point (the Emperor’s throne room as imagined by this concept art) but Sith gave him the opportunity to realise his vision.
Lucas says "I’ve always had this set piece between Obi-Wan and Anakin. I’ve always known where this movie was going to end up. It’s all this volcanic land, with all this lave shooting up. It’s almost monochromatic in all its red-and-blackness. I’ve had that image with me for a long time.”
An opportunity to tidy up Empire
Many fans that have viewed the Special Edition of The Empire Strikes Back that was released on DVD know that Ian McDiarmid re-filmed the scene where Palpatine and Vader discuss having a new enemy, being Luke.
This new scene was recorded during the making of Revenge of the Sith. It was the perfect opportunity as McDiarmid was in the prosthetics as to how Palpatine looked in Jedi.
This mean Lucas was able to replace the ‘monkey’ version of Palpatine that was originally released and to allow for a strong continuity as to how the Emperor looked. McDiarmid's voice over replaced the original work done by Clive Revill.
Lucas also took the opportunity to subtly revise the dialogue between the two Sith Lords to reflect how the prequel story had played out.
Steven Spielberg helped out with that duel.
Steven Spielberg helped out with the plotting and development of the duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin. He decribed a drafted shot where Obi-Wan parts of wave of molten lava as the ‘Moses shot’ as it felt biblical and mythological.
Some back of the envelope calculations by film set crew estimated that it cost $333 dollars per minute to film the movie (does not inc CGI?) so that meant a three minute break to move a cable cost 1000 bucks.
Want more tales from the book? Order it on Amazon now.
How much does it cost a minute to make a Star Wars movie?
Want more tales from the book? Order it on Amazon now.