5 Interesting Facts About Star Wars
4,483 views · Published 21 December 2015 · 3:50 · Indexed 20 September 2026
Channel: Fact5 · 2015 · Education
As you are all probably aware, the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, recently came out and to get you all hyped up here are 5 Interesting Facts about the Star Wars franchise. 5. Yoda was almost played by a monkey. Yes this was bizarrely true! In actual fact, Yoda was about to be played by a cute, little monkey wearing a mask and holding a cane. This was revealed in 2010 by author, J.W. Rinzler in his book, “The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back”. Lucas’s reason for the monkey was that he felt a combination of animatronics and puppetry which was eventually adopted for Yoda would not be realistic enough for the viewers. The simian plans for Yoda was ultimately scrapped when it was noted that the monkey had a tendency to repeatedly pull off his mask. Eventually, Yoda was transformed into a puppet that we all love and know, operated and voiced by Frank Oz. 4. Tupac Shakur nearly played the role of Mace Windu. This may come as a surprise to many but George Lucas reportedly asked Tupac to audition for the role of Master Mace Mindu in the 1999 movie, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. However, the unfortunate death of Tupac in 1996 meant that the rapper was unable to have the chance to audition for the part. Throughout his lifetime Tupac acted in seven movies, including Poetic Justice, Above the Rim and several gang-related films. As a result of his death, Samuel L Jackson secured the role as Mace Windu. Incidentally, Jackson co-starred with Tupac in the 1992 movie, Juice. 3. Storm Troopers CGI. Unlike the original trilogies where vast legions of Storm Troopers were created utilising matte paintings, no physical Storm Trooper costumes were produced during the Star Wars prequels. Since their first on-screen appearance in Star Wars Episode II: The Attack of the Clones, every single Storm Trooper is a computer generated image. In fact, the only thing present on set was the actor, whose head was used during scenes requiring a clone’s face. 2. Luke Skywalker was nearly called Anakin Starkiller. The protagonist of the original Star Wars trilogies, Luke Skywalker, was initially called Anakin Starkiller and went through multiple design changes. The character was even designed as a 60 year old war hero, later as a Jedi master and even a female. Imagine the whole trilogy with an old war hero or even a female as the main protagonist!? Let’s just all forget about this and be thankful that Luke Skywalker was not called Anakin Starkiller because let’s be serious….Anakin Starkiller….seriously!? 1. The cost of the death star. If you have ever wondered to yourself, “How much would the Death Star really cost to make?” Well, you’re in luck… the maths has already been calculated. According to students at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, it would cost a whopping $852,000,000,000,000,000 ($852 quadrillion) to construct the Death Star, which is 13,000 times the amount of the entire World’s GDP. This is due to the sheer amount of steel that would need to be produced as the diameter of the Death Star is predicted to be around 140 and 160 kilometres. It is estimated that it would take 833,315 years to create a sufficient amount of steel to even start production. As Yoda would say, “Patience you must have…” Music = "The Show Must Be Go" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Connect With Us! Twitter = https://twitter.com/OfficialFact5 Google + = https://plus.google.com/+Fact5 Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/OfficialFact5/ Check Out The Narrator = http://bit.ly/Fact5Narrator
