20 facts you might not know about 'The Empire Strikes Back'

Star Wars had made Lucas rich and famous. It has also led his dealing with hypertension and exhaustion. Filming the movie had been fraught, and he didn’t want to do it again. In fact, Lucas even though about selling the rights to 20th Century Fox entirely for a percentage of the profits. Eventually, Lucas decided to stay on as a producer, but stuck to not directing.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of directors were interested in taking on the sequel to Star Wars. Lucas considered over 100 directors for the job. His ultimate choice was a surprise. Irvin Kershner was a teacher at USC’s film school, where Lucas had been a student. Lucas already knew him and decided to offer him the role.

Lucas didn’t want to write the screenplay himself, so he hired science fiction writer Leigh Brackett to shoulder the load. They broke some story ideas together, and then Brackett wrote a screenplay. It did not feature Darth Vader as Luke’s father, and while Luke’s sister was mentioned, it wasn’t Leia. However, Lucas knew that Brackett had cancer when he hired her. After that first draft, Brackett died before Lucas could even give her his notes.

Lucas needed to keep moving under a compressed timeline, so he wrote the second draft of the script. This is where the way Yoda spoke was invented, and also when Boba Fett and the other bounty hunters were added to the script. At this point, Lucas hired Lawrence Kasdan, who had worked on the script for Raiders of the Lost Ark, on which Lucas produced.

By the time the screenplay had been finished, and the title Empire Strikes Back had been settled on, basically nothing from Brackett’s draft was left. Writers Guild arbitration could have left her without a credit. However, Lucas liked the late writer and vouched for her as the co-writer. In the end, Brackett and Kasdan shared screenplay credit, with Lucas taking the “story by” credit. Lucas personally paid Brackett’s family extra money on top of her contract.

In early drafts, Yoda was known as “Minch Yoda” or “the Critter.” Over different drafts, he was also called simple “Minch” or, weirdly, “Buffy,” before Yoda was settled on. Additionally, he was originally a larger, slimy creature.

In 1977, Hamill was involved in a serious car accident. He suffered a broken nose and cheekbone. Over the years, this led to rumors Hamill needed plastic surgery, which he says is not true. Having said that, when Lucas was first formulating ideas for Empire Strikes Back, he was thinking of ways to explain the injuries to Hamill’s face and why Luke would have them.

With the Muppets, Oz was both a puppeteer and performer. That’s common for puppeteers. However, Lucas originally planned to dub over Oz’s voice that he was using when performing. Then, Lucas realized how difficult it would be to hire a voiceover actor to match the puppetry performance done by Oz, so Oz’s voice work stayed in.

The Emperor is only seen in fleeting glimpses in The Empire Strikes Back. The voice was done by Clive Revill. The physical performance, though, was done by a woman. Specifically, special effects artist Rick Baker was called upon to help bring the Emperor to life. Baker created a mask that he put on his wife, Elaine, who played the Emperor. Then, chimpanzee eyes were superimposed over Elaine’s. Cat’s eyes were also considered.

Boba Fett became a cult icon in the Star Wars universe, even though he barely had any lines in any of the movies. In fact, he was as much just a costume as anything else. Jeremy Bulloch was the man hired to play Fett in the film. Why? Because the costume fit him.

Looking for a real location for the ice planet Hoth, the production searched all over Northern Europe. Eventually, they found Finse, Norway, which was near the glacier they actually filmed on. It was a brutal filming experience. The area had the worst snowstorm it had experienced in 50 years, and the weather only cleared for two days.

The producers also wanted to find a real location to film Dagobah. They looked at locations both in Africa and in Scandinavia. Ultimately, they didn’t find a place to shoot. Instead, Dagobah was constructed on a set in London.

Lucas was probably wise to avoid directing again, because shooting Empire Strikes Back seemed immensely difficult. Right before filming at Elstree Studios in London began, a fire destroyed the sets that the production was going to use. They also had to give up two stages so that The Shining could use them, since it was filming there when the fire began.

When Han Solo is going to be frozen in carbonite, it was written that Han and Leia would profess their love for each other. Kershner thought that was too sappy, though. He had Ford improvise lines over and over to try and find the right thing. This eventually wore on Ford, who said he would only do one more take. At this point, he thought of the line, “I know,” which is what made the film.

In the script, it was written that Obi-Wan was Luke’s father. However, this was there to keep the truth from leaking out. Only Hamill, Kershner, and the producers knew the truth: Darth Vader was going to reveal he was Luke’s father.

You’ve heard it in TV shows and movie. You’ve heard it said by friends, coworkers, and family. Somebody does their best Darth Vader and says, “Luke, I am your father.” It’s a quote that has been said ad infinitum…except that it isn’t a quote from the film. What Vader actually says is, “No, I am your father.”

The Empire Strikes Back was given a limited release to start. At this time, Lucas started to think it was unclear where Luke and Leia were relative to Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca. Lucas, never afraid of tinkering, Frankensteined together some new scenes at his special effects studio, ILM, to help clarify that. They were added before the film’s wide release.

Lucas wanted to put all the crew credits at the end of the movie, allowing him to open with the score and the opening crawl. He was able to do that on Star Wars as a technicality because he was the director and his production logo for Lucasfilm was seen at the beginning of the movie. The Writers Guild and Directors Guild were not down with that happening again. Lucas was fined $250,000 by the WGA, and the DGA fined Kershner $25,000 because they couldn’t fine Lucas on a technicality since the film had been shot in London. Lucas was so frustrated by this he left the WGA, DGA, and MPA.

The Empire Strikes Back was No. 1 in the U.S. box office for three weeks, dropped to third for a week, and then spent seven more weeks atop the box office. All in all, it made roughly $209.4 million in the North American box office. That’s more than $100 million more than any other movie released that year. It was less than Star Wars made, but still incredibly successful.

Star Wars had been a huge hit with the Academy, even getting a Best Picture nomination. The Empire Strikes Back did not do as well. It only received three nominations, all for technical categories. The film’s only win in competition came for Best Sound. (It also received a Special Achievement award for visual effects.)