20 facts you might not know about 'Revenge of the Sith'

Lucas knew he had a third film to make to finish out his trilogy. Before Attack of the Clones was even finished and released, he began working on the script for what would become Revenge of the Sith. Lucas is the sole credited write on this movie, a rarity for him.

Novelizations of movies are a common, if strange, thing. They also often include details that aren’t in the actual film. In the novelization of Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan mentions battling Anakin, and Anakin falling into a “molten pit.” This became the basis for the culmination of Revenge of the Sith.

Attack of the Clones ends with the beginning of the Clone Wars, and originally, Lucas was thinking he’d start Revenge of the Sith with seven battles on seven planets. However, he realized that he really needed to focus on Anakin Skywalker turning to the dark side, so he became the focal point of the opening of the film — culminating in Anakin killing Count Dooku.

There were a lot of changes Lucas made while shaping his script for this movie. For example, Lucas had meant to explain how Kamino had been erased from the Jedi archives. There were two other huge things that were considered but scrapped. One was a conversation between Yoda and the ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn. The other, an even bolder idea, was there being a 10-year-old Han Solo on the planet of Kashyyyk.

Online speculation ran rampant about what the title of the film would be. One day, the title “The Creeping Fear” appeared on the movie’s official website. Of course, that was on April Fool’s Day. One of the titles that was being speculated on was indeed Revenge of the Sith, which Lucas would confirm. He had originally planned to title Return of the Jedi as “Revenge of the Jedi" before deciding Jedis wouldn’t believe in revenge.

A lot of people would love to be in a Star Wars film. Just look at all the cameos that have occurred in the franchise over the years. They could have gotten somebody impressive to voice the droid General Grievous, but that was not the case. Instead, sound engineer Matthew Wood voiced him.

Morrison played Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones, and he plays all the clone troopers in Revenge of the Sith. That includes playing the character of Commando Cody. That’s a fitting name given Lucas’ being heavily influenced by the film serials he watched growing up. "Commander Cody" is one of those serials. If you want to check them out, they were shown in a few episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Jeremy Bulloch played Bob Fett in the original trilogy, having gotten the role because the costume fit him (that’s not a joke). Bulloch was back in Revenge of the Sith, but in a new part. He plays Captain Colton, the pilot of the Tantive IV.

Lucas’ daughterss, Katie and Amanda, and son, Jett, all had cameos in Revenge of the Sith, having also all been in Attack of the Clones. However, this time George himself also got in on the fun. He plays Baron Papanoida, a blue-faced alien at the opera on Coruscant.

Lucas famously hates the Star Wars Holiday Special. He tried to keep people from seeing it for years as it became a cult object. However, the Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk is a key part of that special, and this film was returning to Kashyyyk. As such, they had to look to the Holiday Special for inspiration. Eventually, the Kashyyyk scenes would be shot in Phuket, Thailand.

It must be nice to have somebody like Steven Spielberg as a friend who is willing to come hang out and help you with your movie. Granted, Spielberg wasn’t being entirely altruistic. He was going to be using the pre-visualization techniques that Lucas’ ILM had pioneered on his new movie War of the Worlds, and he wanted to get some firsthand experience.

You can see quite a few Wookiees in the film, but they didn’t require that many extras. Instead, they hired 10 actors and put them in Wookiee suits. Then, they were duplicated by computers to make it look like there were more Wookiees. Additionally, the new Wookiee suits had a system that used water to cool them down. That was likely a relief to Peter Mayhew, who returned as Chewbacca.

We’ve seen Senator Palpatine, a.k.a. the Emperor aka Darth Sidious, use his Force powers plenty. Usually, he relies on the electricity that flows from his fingers. In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine does something he never did before — and hasn’t done sense: He wields a lightsaber.

It just so happened that Mt. Etna in Italy was erupting when they were shooting Revenge of the Sith. That was helpful because they were able to film that eruption and use it to stand in for the volcanic eruptions on the planet of Mustafar.

Revenge of the Sith builds to Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader. In the original trilogy, Vader had been embodied by David Prowse, a tall man, while being voiced by James Earl Jones. Lucas had intended to hire a tall actor to play Vader in this one, but Christensen pleaded with Lucas to let him do it himself. Lucas agreed. Though Christensen is far from short at six-foot, he still had to wear lifts and look through the mouthpiece of the suit to play Vader.

The first five Star Wars films were all rated PG. Revenge of the Sith, though, involved Anakin getting burnt up by lava. This is what you might call “sci-fi violence” or an “intense image.” Those are the two reasons that were given for Revenge of the Sith being rated PG-13. It was the first Star Wars film to get that rating.

Revenge of the Sith got the best rating of any of the prequels. It even has a 80 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes! On top of that, it brought in plenty of money. The film broke a few box-office records, including highest opening-day gross and highest single-day gross. It would eventually make $849 million worldwide, which was second most among 2005 movies to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

The first five Star Wars movies were all nominated for Best Visual Effects. Revenge of the Sith was not, making it the first film in the franchise to fail on that front. It was nominated for Best Makeup, however, but it lost.

The film won People’s Choice Awards, Teen Choice Awards, and Saturn Awards. It also received the fewest Razzie nominations of any prequel, only getting one nod. That went to Christensen, who ended up winning for Worst Supporting Actor. On the other hand, he won Best Villain at the MTV Movie Awards.

The popular animated TV show The Clone Wars was used to fill in the three-year gap between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Now, a TV show will help fill in the gap between Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars. Obi-Wan Kenobi is another Disney+ original show set in the Star Wars universe. It takes place 10 years after the events of Revenge of the Sith and features McGregor and Christensen returning as Obi-Wan and Darth Vader, respectively.