20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith

for many younger star wars fans revenge of the sith is the best star wars movie and even for more elegant viewers from a more civilized age it's easily the best of the prequels but its popularity doesn't mean there's not plenty left to discover about george lucas's final star wars film here are 20 things you didn't know about star wars revenge of the sith 20. the original cut was almost 4 hours long it's true of basically every movie ever made that original cuts end up being significantly longer than the final one in cinemas although in the case of revenge of the sith the length of the original edit is quite extreme the film's final release clocks in at a hefty 140 minutes but the first cut was just shy of four hours with the opening battle and palpatine's rescue concluding over one hour into the film fans created a petition for the release of a full four hour cut but sadly with the money it would cost disney to release such a thing it's likely not worth their bother still it would be neat if the four-hour version ever materialized one day 19. a young han solo almost had a cameo one of lucas's earlier ideas for the script saw an appearance by a 10 year old han solo during the battle of kashyyyk han would be depicted as an orphan raised by chewbacca and shown helping yoda track down general grievous his single line of dialogue was apparently thus i found part of a transmitter droid near the east bay i think it's still sending and receiving signals it would have been a majorly significant cameo in confirming who raised han as a child and also giving audiences the series his only scene between han and yoda however the scene was cut before shooting started and considering how excessively fan-serving it would have been it was probably for the best 18. steven spielberg helped design several sequences it is not a secret that george lucas has been incredibly tight with steven spielberg since the early days of their careers and for revenge of the sith he even invited spielberg to collaborate on some of the film's set pieces with the film being entirely pre-visualized before shooting began lucas had spielberg contribute his design ideas in a guest director capacity spielberg primarily worked on the climactic mustafa duel between obi-wan and anakin but reportedly also had input on several other sequences and even spent a few days mentoring the younger members of the film's art direction team and in all honesty it's probably not a coincidence that spielberg ended up being involved with by far the best film of the prequel trilogy 17. c-3po's armor created a huge problem for vfx artists though the prequels took increasing advantage of groundbreaking blue and green screen technology to give george lucas maximum control over production this also created a major technical issue where the character of c-3po was concerned given the highly reflective nature of his iconic gold armor the blue and green sets would be blatantly visible in its reflections requiring the vfx team to manually repaint 3po's armor in post-production frame by frame as much as the emerging tech allowed lucas to heavily tinker around with the prequels in post it also created this migraine inducing problem for the poor artists who no doubt cursed any moment where 3po appeared in a scene 16. general grievous was originally a child grievous made his cinematic debut in revenge of the sith and the character's distinctive design was iterated upon heavily throughout production lucas's only brief to the art department was simply to create a droid general and so an extremely early concept for grievous went the left-field route of depicting him as a child more to the point he was a child who sat on a floating chair and was guarded by two ig-88 droids obviously lucas didn't roll with this design in the end his rationale being that audiences simply wouldn't believe a child as a legendary fearsome master of hand-to-hand combat believe it or not grievous's final design was actually inspired in part by of all things a bathroom detergent spray nozzle but for the life of me i can't see the resemblance 15. the movie's title was adapted from the original return of the jedi title revenge of the sith is actually a title that had been rattling around in george lucas's head for roughly 20 years before he finally used it in this movie for a while return of the jedi was in fact going to be titled revenge of the jedi after co-writer lawrence caston told lucas the return of the jedi would be a quote weak title lucas agreed and came up with the revenge of the jedi instead which stuck to the extent that both the first teaser trailer and promotional posters both bore this new name however lucas eventually decided that revenge wasn't a word befitting the jedi and so swapped it back to return yet when prepping the third prequel movie lucas realized how perfectly it fit the tenor of that film and so opted for revenge of the sith instead it's certainly a lot better than the title heavily rumored before release the creeping fear that would have been bad 14. mustafar was inspired by mount etna one of the most impressive locations in the movie is undeniably mustafar the volcanic planet where obi-wan and anakin have their fateful climactic jewel as fantastical in nature as the planet is its aesthetic was nevertheless influenced by real life as during production italy's mount aetna erupted and lucas had a small crew visit the location to capture footage of the lava flow this was then used as the visual basis for the lava featured in the final scene vfx drawing from the footage shot live on location 13. it's the only star wars film not to receive a best visual effects oscar nomination revenge of the sith holds a surprising distinction among the franchise of the 11 live-action star wars films to date it's the only one not to be recognized by the academy for its visual effects achievements the original three star wars movies all won oscars for their vfx in the case of the latter two special achievement oscars due to the lack of competing nominees but not a single star wars film since has ever won the award outright but with the exception of revenge of the sith they've all been at least nominated and ultimately the film received just a single nomination for best makeup which it lost to the chronicles of narnia 12. christopher lee filmed all his scenes against a green screen in just two days count dooku makes a brief but memorable appearance in revenge's first act where he summarily overpowered and executed by anakin christopher lee actually ended up filming his role in just two days and because he was recalled to complete reshoots for lord of the rings return of the king in new zealand his part had to be pushed to the front of revenge of the sith's shooting schedule but general grievous's quarters set hadn't yet been built and so lee ended up having to shoot his scenes there in front of a green screen even with the cgi heavy nature of the production it's a shame that lee never got to have any sort of tactile acting experience while working on the film 11. the film's colour palette was inspired by painter mark rothko george lucas has drawn upon a myriad of aesthetic influences over the course of his work on star wars and for revenge of the sith he took inspiration from a most unexpected source the film's distinctive colour palettes particularly its emphasis on reds and oranges was inspired by the paintings of iconic abstract expressionist mark rothko lucas being a huge fan of the painter turned to his work for inspiration namely his famed color field paintings which used depth of color to convey mood and tone now this influence would surely be lost on all but the most hardcore rothko fans but it nevertheless proves that inspiration can come from the most left field of places 10. ewan mcgregor and hayden christensen trained for two months for the final battle without question the most pivotal and important set piece in the film is the final mustafa jewel between obi-wan and anakin as such ewan mcgregor and hayden christensen spent an entire two months undergoing fencing and fitness training to prep for the intricately choreographed fight ultimately this training paid off dividends as despite the frantic nature of the battle the overwhelming majority of it unfolds at the very same speed that mcgregor and christensen performed it on set apparently george lucas did end up removing a few frames here and there in order to boost the intensity of a few select hits but for the most part it's just two expertly trained actors legit wailing on one another nine it's the first star wars movie to be rated pg-13 revenge of the sith marked another first for the star wars franchise by being the first film in the series to receive a pg-13 audience rating from the mpaa given that every prior entry into the series had been rated pg this caused a minor stir among fans feeling that this climactic entry would be the darkest and most violent yet the mpaa issued the rating due to quote sci-fi violence and some intense images largely due to the admittedly gnarly sequence in which anakin is horribly burnt on mustafar for his parts lucas was absolutely fine with the mpaa's decision and felt no need to protest against it agreeing that the film's darker tone made a pg-13 appropriate since then every single subsequent live-action star wars film has also had a pg-13 rating eight george lucas provided general grievous's cough george lucas generally likes to keep out of the camera's way and though he does make a fleeting live-action cameo in revenge as a blue-skinned politician at the coruscant opera house his more interesting cameo is one you'll have to keep an ear out for after developing a nasty cough during production lucas decided to record it and use it for general grievous who of course has a notable asthmatic cough throughout his appearance 7. cgi grand moff tarkin almost had a cameo perhaps george lucas's single most ambitious idea for revenge of the sith was to have grand moff tarkin make an appearance in the film by using cutting edge vfx technology to manipulate previously shot footage of actor peter cushing from a new hope but lucas ultimately decided that the footage wasn't sufficient enough that it could be integrated into a new film and subsequently abandoned the idea tarkin did however end up being brought back for the 2016 prequel rogue one a star wars story with cushing's likeness being digitally reconstructed and mapped over a body double to impressive but not 100 convincing effect 6. george lucas made major changes to anakin's characterization during reshoots though george lucas completed principal photography in the summer of 2003 a whole 20 months before revenge's release he returned to complete extensive additional photography in the later months of 2004. during this period among other things lucas made substantial changes to anakin's character wishing to clarify his motivations and make his turn to the dark side more convincing after editing the original shoots together lucas realized he wanted to flesh out the context of anakin's turn both reshooting scenes and filming additional ones which highlighted anakin's desire to save padme's life 5. the scene where obi-wan gives luke to owen and beru has way more cgi than you think one of the most pivotal scenes in the film involves obi-wan delivering a baby luke to owen and baru lars on tatooine it's only a minute long but it provides a tantalizing fan serving lead-in to the events of a new hope despite the seeming simplicity of having one character hand over a baby to another the scene's ultimate execution proved to be surprisingly complex for starters an original version of the scene was shot in tunisia while shooting the previous film attack of the clones ewan mcgregor wasn't present for the filming with a body double instead taking his place but lucas later decided that we needed to see mcgregor's face for the scene to really work as a result the entire scene had to be re-shot from scratch but due to the schedules of all three actors involved they ended up shooting their parts separately against a green screen and being composited together admittedly it's pretty well stitched together for the most part enough that you might only believe the background required any cgi at all four gary oldman almost voiced general grievous five-time oscar-nominated sound engineer matthew wood ended up providing the voice for general grievous but earlier in the process george lucas actually sought out an a-list talent to play the part gary oldman was initially hired to voice grievous though ended up pulling out of the production after learning that the film was going to be made outside of the screen actors guild lucas decided to do this after being fined 250 000 by the director's guild of america during the empire strikes back for failing to include director irvin kirschner's name on the opening credits after which he ceased to have anything to do with major filmmaking guilds for aldman participation in a non-guild project would have been a violation of his membership and could have resulted in him being fined suspended or expelled all of which would have hurt his future career as awesome as it would have been to have oldman on board i still love grievous's voice anyway three mythbusters debunked the higher ground myth one of the film's most memorable moments is surely obi-wan's climactic declaration to anakin that their battle is over because he has the high ground in a 2015 episode of mythbusters the team put this theory to the test that having high ground over your opponents gives you an overwhelming tactical advantage adam and jaime fought a series of jewels to determine whether the high ground truly was advantageous and they found that they won roughly half of their jewels each seemingly busting the myth of obi-wan's claim the pair were sure to note that neither of them were skilled swordsmen nor was the outcome particularly scientific but it still provides amusing food for thought two the first draft contained huge story differences the first draft of the film script contained massive story differences from the final shooting screenplay of revenge of the sith for starters during the scene where palpatine reveals his true nature to anakin palpatine originally confirmed that he manipulated the force to cause anakin's creation effectively being his father lucas ended up cutting it because he felt it was too similar to the vader luke parentage twist though the idea was ultimately explored in a more recent comic darth vader 25 lucasfilm's story group have themselves confirmed that this isn't at all true elsewhere in that original draft a teenage boba fett was the one who killed mace windu during order 66 in revenge for killing his father jango but lucas changed windows killer to be palpatine after feeling boba was too young to believably kill a jedi master and finally padme was originally going to survive the ends of the film and go into hiding with baby leia on alderaan in the end lucas felt that padme needed a dramatic on-screen death rather than dying uneventfully off-screen 1. george lucas filmed a scene to fix the empire strikes back during production while shooting revenge of the sith lucas also decided to shoot for another star wars project entirely for the impending 2004 home video re-release of the original trilogy lucas re-shot the emperor's introduction by hologram from the empire strikes back though in the original version of the film the part was played by marjorie eaton and voiced by clive revel lucas felt that for the sake of consistency it'd make more sense to have the same actor play the emperor all the way through and so ian mcdermott reenacted the scene and was inserted into the new version of empire and is one of lucas's many controversial if honestly more sensible changes to the original trilogy and there you have it folks 20 things you didn't know about star wars revenge of the sith feel free to drop this video a like if you enjoyed it and drop me a follow on twitter at youslide.org you i'm will for culture thanks for hanging out and i'll see you next time

Channel: WhatCulture Star Wars

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Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 16 2021