Our Mega List of Fascinating Star Wars Facts You Probably Didn’t Know

hello I'm Simon Whistler you're watching the today I found our YouTube channel and today in celebration of the new Star Wars movie we've got 38 amazing Star Wars facts for you number one the person who did the voice and puppeteer work for Yoda and who is also responsible for quite a bit of Yoda's character traits including the distinct yodok style of speech object subject-verb Franco's also did the voices for Miss Piggy for Cookie Monster Susie Bab animal Grover Sam the Eagle and Burt from Bert and Ernie among many others number two speaking of Yoda famed makeup artist Stuart Freeborn the grandfather of modern makeup design models Yoda's face partially after his own with hints of Albert Einstein number three contrary to c-3po s estimates in Empire Strikes Back it should actually be quite safe to fly through an asteroid field the reality is that objects in asteroid fields are generally hundreds of thousands of miles apart and most of them are no bigger than a tennis ball for instance if you add it on the mass of all the asteroids in our solar system's asteroid belt it's a mere 4% of the mass of our Moon with about half of the total mass from just four asteroids Ceres Vesta Pallas and high gear but that's our asteroid belt could the be one out there that would be dangerous to fly through unlikely unless it was formed extremely recently the reason being that even if the asteroid belt is initially packed with debris that are colliding everywhere like what is depicted in Empire Strikes Back this would relatively quickly on a galactic time scale sort itself out with most of the mass ejective from the bells eventually the system would stabilize itself to something like our asteroid belt and if you're thinking just now but maybe the hoff asteroid belt was a newly formed phenomenon it was actually described in the extended universe as having been formed several million years before the events of Empire Strikes Back via a collision of two rocky planets for further reference our asteroid belt is thought to have originally contains approximately 1,000 times its current mass and within about a million years stabilized down to in the ballpark of the mass we have today it's also worth noting that objects that are greater than about six miles wide in our asteroid belt are estimated to have about one random collision every 10 million years or so on average number four in the Phantom Menace qui-gon jinns communicator is just a sensor excel razor for women that was slightly modified number five according to Peter Mayhew the actor who plays chewbacca during the filming of the Endor scenes he wasn't allowed to walk around the forest in costume without other people with him because the crew were concerned that he'd be shot by a hunter perhaps mistaking him for Bigfoot ironically then one very questionable extended universe comic calls into the great unknown Chewbacca and Han Solo crashing to a forest on earth while solo is ultimately killed by natives Chewbacca survives and spends 126 years roaming the forest where he becomes mistaken for Bigfoot number 6 Warwick Davis today best known for his roles in Harry Potter most notably portraying Professor Flitwick and the mockumentary life's too short and on many other works got his start in show business at the age of 11 playing the Ewok wicket in Return of the Jedi Davis was originally just cast as an Ewok extra but the actor who was originally going to play wicket Kenny Baker who played r2d2 got sick on the day of the shoot and Warwick was selected to take over this was Davis's big break as later Ron Howard and George Lucas would create the film willow with Warwick Davis in mind to play the starring role even though Davis was just 17 when they offered him the part and was playing a character who was depicted to be in his late 20s or early 30s number 8 the Ewoks were named after the Native American tribe mill walk who lived in the redwood forest that is the setting for the Endor scenes in Return of the Jedi it is also being suggested that Princess Leia's bun hairstyle was also of Native American origin based on the hoppy Indian squash blossom hairstyle that very strongly resembles Leia's bun hairstyle when near perfectly matches one of pad knees however at least in the former case George Lucas denies this stating that the similarity is coincidental number 9 incidentally the word he walk was never spoken in Return of the Jedi the name of the Ewoks among many other names of characters that are never explicitly mentioned in the Star Wars films became widely known thanks primarily to the various and figures and other toys later sold which explicitly referenced their names on the packaging number 10 the actor who played Count Dooku in episodes 2 & 3 Christopher Lee in partnership with guitarist Richie Faulkner of Judas Priest fame created a heavy metal album released on Lee's 91st birthday the album is based on the life of Carla name if you don't find that odd enough you should know that this wasn't Lee's first metal album and it also wasn't his first music on the topic of Charlemagne Lee's first metal album the Charlemagne by the sword and the cross was released in 2010 it was followed by the aforementioned album made with Richie Faulkner Charlemagne the omens of death which came out in May of 2013 in 2012 he also released an album of covers of heavy metal Christmas songs called a heaviness or Christmas number 11 Elizabeth Taylor was at one point Carrie Fisher stepmother Carrie Fisher is the daughter of famed entertainers Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds when Eddie Fisher divorced Reynolds in 1959 he quickly married one of Reynolds's best friends Elizabeth Taylor who he had previously been having an affair with the two stayed married for five years and divorced in 1964 when Carrie Fisher was 9 years of age number 12 Mark Hamill currently holds the record for playing the Batman character of Joker longer than any other actor and in more spin-offs I've never seen him play the Joker you say it's because Hamill is one of the more prolific voiceover actors in Hollywood blending his vocal talents to over 100 different characters to date among these roles he has been doing the voice of the Joker on a variety of animated TV shows movies and video games for over two decades he got his start doing the Joker in the Emmy award-winning 1992 Batman the Animated Series had previously done the voice of the character on Ferris Boyle in the Batman episode heart of ice so when Tim Curry decided to opt out of doing the voice of Joker they gave the role to Hamill he's been doing it ever since as to the inspiration for his now famous version of the Joker Hamill stated that he was going for a cross between Hannibal Lecter and Jerry Lewis number 13 speaking of Mark Hamill his desire to work in movies was kindled after seeing the 1963 film jason and the argonauts referring to people telling him they sited on a career in show business after watching Star Wars Hamill stated I can't tell you how many people have said I got into the business because of a movie I totally understood that because I remember walking out of jason and the argonauts and saying i don't know how they got those skeletons to fight that someday I want that to be my job to make skeletons fight number fourteen one individual who had his life changed by Star Wars was James Cameron you see a few years after dropping out of Community College in 1974 Cameron found himself working as a truck driver that's all changed when he watched the first Star Wars in 1977 after seeing this he decided to quit his day job and see if he couldn't make it in the film industry a few Oscars and several blockbusters later we can safely assume he doesn't regret its decision number 15 as many people know while filming Star Wars a new hope Mark Hamill was in a car accident on January the 11th 1977 from here the myths abound everything from him nearly losing his life to having massive facial reconstruction surgery according to Hamill although it wasn't that big of a deal I broke my nose that's it but I read accounts about how my face has been reconstructed with plastic surgery and how I was pulling myself along the highway with one arm looking for help I even heard that I drove off a cliff that's the best one of all it should also be noted that filming for Empire Strikes Back didn't start until March of 1979 over two years after Hamill's accidents so he was all healed up by then if you guessed from this that the community stated idea that the Whomper attacking Luke in Empire Strikes Back was written to explain why Hamill's face was messed up is a myth you would be correct number 16 according to sound editor Walter Murch the story behind r2d2 his name is the during editing of Lucas's previous film American Graffiti Murch asked for real to dialogue track two and abbreviated it to r2d2 Lucas who was half asleep while working on the script for his next feature the Star Wars came out of his nose and thought it would make a great name for a robot Murch stated directly after this Lucas went back to sleep number 17 speaking of the droids the words droid is a registered trade of Lucasfilm Ltd shortly before Verizon launched their droid line of mobile devices Lucasfilm Ltd swept in and filed a trademark on October the 9th 2009 for the term as a result of this Verizon had to pay Lucasfilm Ltd an undisclosed sum for the rights to use this word as a brand name and if you're wondering the word droid is just in a thesis form of Android a word that's been around since at least the 1700s the first documented mention of Android is in the Ephraim chambers cyclopædia Albertus Magnus is recorded as having made a famous Android Asst Android derives from the Greek and Romina man and the Suffolk Eadie's meaning form likeness appearance or resemblance hence the definition of Android being automation resembling a human being number 18 many of the droids including r2d2 and c3po on Star Wars were designed by legendary special effects man John steers aka the Dean of special effects steers also designed Luke's land speeder the lightsaber the Death Star and a variety of other gadgets in the films he isn't just known for his work in Star Wars though but also in the James Bond movies known as the real Q in that context and for designing the flying car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang among many other films he worked on incidentally both Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and James Bond's were created by the same guy the in Fleming Fleming wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for his affinity Sun Casper while suffering from serious heart issues near the end of his life Fleming unfortunately died on August the 12th 1964 which was also Casper's twelfth birthday number 19 the famous Star Wars scream that more properly known as the Vilhelm scream earned in hundreds of movies was created via the vocal talents of Sheb Wooley perhaps better known for his 1958 song purple people eater the genesis of the scream was that Willy had an uncredited part in the first film the scream was heard in a 1951 film called distant drums at one point during the film captain Quincy is leading his soldiers through a swamp when one of them gets attacked and dragged under by an alligator screaming in the process during post-production recordings Willy recorded various vocal sound effects for the film including a batch of screams so why was it dubbed the Vilhelm scream if the man who did the screen was named a sham Willem after being plucked from the Warner Brothers stock sounds library the screen was used in the 1953 film the charge at Feather River starring guy Madison as private Vilhelm the sound effect is used when private Vilhelm is shot in the thigh with an arrow the screen was nicknamed a Vilhelm from then on as for the Hollywood tradition slash inside joke of purposefully using the screen in a variety of films this began with sound effects designer ben burtt who worked on numerous films including star wars he noticed the screen being used in certain Warner Brothers films such as them in 1954 Helen of Troy in 1956 and the Green Berets in 1968 Burtt then began slipping the vilhelm scream into every movie he worked on beginning with George Lucas's Star Wars and new hope number 20 Anakin Skywalker displays six of the nine criteria for borderline personality disorder as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition these include frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation in relationships unstable self-image impulsivity that is self damaging inappropriate intense anger and stress-related paranoid ideation on this last remember I don't want to hear any more about obi-wan the Jedi turned against me don't you turn against me you're with him you've brought him here to kill me number 21 James Earl Jones was not Lucas's first choice for the voice of Darth Vader originally he was hoping to land Orson Welles for the part but ultimately decided Welles his voice was too recognizable and Welles would likely have been very expensive anyway so he finally settled on James Earl Jones Jones later stated in an interview with the American Film Institute that he was paid just $7,000 about $27,000 today for his work in a new hope at the time he said he thought it was good money of course today Jones is thought to have a net worth of around 45 million dollars so he's doing all right interestingly early in his life Jones had a severe stutter and generally avoided talking when he could because of it he stated of this I'm a walking irony but there are a lot of us around there are famous dancers who started off life cripples and Althea Gibson was a black tennis player who had polio as a child there are lots of examples of people who start off in life with a very weak muscle but who by strengthening it make it a strength of bears but it is still a very impaired voice a stutterer is impaired but I learned how to work around that number 22 if you're wondering why early lightsaber battles were quite slow and the characters always kept two hands on the weapon this is because Lukas was adamant that the lightsabers were supposed to be extremely heavy over time he gradually lessened his stance on this to allow for more elaborate and fast-paced duels number 23 according to George Lucas the original lightsaber was a very slightly modified flash attachment to a camera that they took the flash part off of number 24 as for the iconic sound of the lightsaber the aforementioned Ben Burtt stated the very first sound I created for the film was the lightsaber in the booth where we projected the film's those projectors would make a hum they weren't running they were idling the motors would just sit there with this kind of magical mysterious humming sound that I thought was musical in a way and I thought that's probably what a lightsaber would sound like and I was searching for some other elements and I had a tape recorder with a broken mic cable that the shielding had come off of and when I walked past a television set in my apartment it picked up the hum from the picture tube directly into the broken wire and that made a buzz and I thought that's a great buzz that sounds dangerous normally this sounds person doesn't want a buzz or a hum but in this case a buzz and a hum was the answer number 25 the actor who played Grand Moff will Hoff Tarkin Peter Cushing stated that he found his costume boots so uncomfortable that he generally didn't wear them while being filmed he didn't go shoeless however they instead getting Lucas's permission to wear slippers whenever his feet weren't going to be in the movie number 26 the actor who played wedge antilles Denis Lawson has a sister named Carol Diane McGregor why is this significant in the Star Wars universe Carol McGregor has a son named Owen who of course played obi-wan Kenobi the prequels number 27 the Bounty Hunter loners bask in Star Wars Empire Strikes Back is wearing a spacesuit borrowed from the 1966 Doctor Who episode the 10th planet number 28 Return of the Jedi was at one point called revenge of the Jedi including having posters and the December of 1982 teaser trailer among other promotional materials made up leading to the release of the film because of this the 1982 Star Trek 2 a vengeance of karna was renamed to the Wrath of Khan Lucas later decided that seeking revenge was not in character for a Jedi so changed the title number 29 speaking of the name of episode 6 it was originally codenamed blue harvest to keep people from knowing that what they were really shooting was the third Star Wars installment presenting the film as a No Name horror flick not only helped keep Gorkhas away but also helped them get better deals when negotiating fees for various locations used for the film the name blue harvest was in homage to the 1929 film red harvest that in turn inspired Akira Kurosawa's film Yojimbo which was later adapted into the 1964 a fistful of dollars Lucas was a huge fan of Kurosawa's work with elements from it being heavily borrowed in Star Wars we're actually gonna have more information about this in an upcoming video that we're putting together which is called the origins of the Jedi number 30 while Star Wars The Force awakens we'll see a release in just over four thousand one hundred theaters narrowly beating out of The Hobbit an unexpected journey for the widest December release Star Wars a new hope was originally slated to show in only 40 theaters as few theaters were interested in carrying it to help boost the numbers 20th Century Fox stipulated that if a theater wanted to show their highly anticipated adaptation of the best-selling novel the other side of midnight they must also show Star Wars ensuring that Star Wars would get a V good release oh and if you're wondering the widest release for a film in any month of the year belongs to Twilight's Eclipse which opens in June of 2010 in just shy of 4,500 theaters yes really number 31 the giant monster slug called an EXO Gotha that tries to eat the Millennium Falcon in Empire Strikes Back was actually just a small hands puppet many of the asteroids in that part of the film were just spray-painted potatoes rocks and pieces of polystyrene that had been coated in plaster and it was all filmed in front of a blue screen number 32 in the original script when Han Solo is about to be frozen in carbonite he was supposed to say I love you too in response to Leia saying that she loved him however Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner and Harrison Ford both thought this was out of character for solo with I know ultimately being improvised on set number 33 during filming of the most iconic scene of Empire Strikes Back where Vader tells Luke II is Luke's father the script actually said obi-wan killed your father among the actors only Mark Hamill was told what the real line would say once James Earl Jones would record it so Hamill could react accordingly to the news of course anyone who speaks Dutch could have been tipped off by the spelling of Vader's name as Vader is Dutch for father although the Dutch would actually pronounce this for Dan it also should be noted that although Lucas has various times claimed he always intended Vader's name to hint at this plot element some playing this unlikely given various drastic scripts changes that occurred after the character was already given that name it may well believe that Lucas's choice of name that was supposed to be akin to dark father just happened to be a coincidence to the ultimate plot element or perhaps even helped inspire it number 34 the opening of Empire Strikes Back resulted in a huge clash between George Lucas and the respective writers and directors guilds of America because Lucas refused to post normal opening credits in the film preferring to just show those afterwards like he had in Episode four the guilds were fine with that in a new hope because Lucas said written and directed it and his name is included in lucasfilm's limiters that appears before the iconic crawling yellow text that sets up the story however while Lucasfilm Ltd also appears at the beginning of Empire Strikes Back the same could not be said for the names of screenplay writers Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan nor was any opening credit given to director Urban Kirchner as a result the respective guilds tried to get the movie pulled from theaters and also went after director Urban Kirchner over the matter while they were unsuccessful in getting the film removed from theaters Lucas did have to pay a $250,000 fine which is about seven hundred thousand dollars today over the missing opening credits in protest Lucas then promptly withdrew his membership to the DGA WGA and the Motion Picture Association number 35 actor Harry Shearer who is perhaps best known today for voicing Ned Flanders Principal Skinner and mr. burns among other characters on The Simpsons also did voice work on Star Wars a new hope though Shearer can't remember exactly what his lines were as he noted on Twitter not clear on what all I did just some words on paper they called me and I did it by left it is thought that sharers voice was dubbed in for Captain Kirk II who is tasked by Vader to have the Millennium Falcon searched shortly after its arrival on the Death Star the actor who played curry on screen is Christopher Monk number 36 if you thought general Crick's Medina's beards looked fake in Return of the Jedi that's because it was when Dermot Crowley was originally cast as the general he had a beard but shaved it off shortly before showing up on the set of Return of the Jedi this was a major problem because Kenner products toy company had already begun pre-production of general Madden's action figure which had a beard modeled after Crowley's former facial hair to get around this and to avoid having to wait for Crowley to grow a new one he was given a fake beard to wear number 37 famous director of such films as Fight Club 7 the social network and gone girl David Fincher got his start in Hollywood as an assistant cameraman on Star Wars he was later seriously considered for the position of Director of episode 7 but he didn't get it in his opinion due to his vision of where to take the franchise contrasting with the direction of the president of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy and Disney had in mind number 38 Keira Knightley is prominently featured in the Phantom Menace where do you ask she played sab Queen Amidala x' decoy when Natalie Portman was on screen saying her hands made padam beyond the heavy makeup Knightley wore in the film to help mask the deception Portman's voice was also dubbed in over Knightley's in the final version of the film so I really hope you enjoyed those Star Wars facts if he did please give us a like below it really helps out and don't forget to subscribe to our channel for other great videos just like this also over there on the right a couple of other videos you'll probably enjoy if you enjoyed this one don't forget to Like don't forget to subscribe and thank you for watching

Channel: Today I Found Out

Views: 331,271

Rating: 4.8834624 out of 5

Keywords: today i found out, tifovidz12, tifo, awesome, facts, didn't know, Star Wars, Entertainment, Movies, Film Trivia, Trivia, Star Wars Facts, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars Episode VII

Id: EDOmb40aEZo

Length: 22min 10sec (1330 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2015