It would be easy to think all of Star Wars' Jedi secrets have been gleaned from that galaxy
far, far away.
But here are some fake ones that slipped through.
Don't throw a Sith fit if you've fallen for these false Star Wars facts!
This often repeated legend that George Lucas wanted to make a grand total of twelve Star
Wars movies is mostly based on the misconception that George Lucas was some sort of cinematic
prophet who knew from Day One that Star Wars would be a hit and that there would be both
the means and the demand to continue the franchise for at least a half a century.
That all mostly happened — but Lucas had no way of knowing it.
The original plan was actually to make one film.
Because that was the rational approach: make one film, see how it goes.
But then the first film was a crazy success, so Lucas decided to turn the story into a
trilogy.
Beyond that, no one is really sure what was in his head.
National Post says he told Mark Hamill back in 1976 that he planned to make four trilogies.
But after he finished the tragically wretched prequel series, he famously said:
"There will definitely be no Episodes VII-IX."
"I've got a bad feeling about this."
Even that wasn't the final word, though.
In The Secret History of Star Wars, Lucas is said to have envisioned a sequel trilogy
beyond Return of the Jedi, and in The Art of the Last Jedi, the author says Luke's hermit
storyline was actually Lucas' idea.
So even though Lucas has handed the franchise over to Disney, it's clear that his influence
will live on, no matter how many movies are eventually made.
Everyone knows the real protagonist of Star Wars is Darth Vader — that's made pretty
explicitly clear in the prequels, where we follow Anakin Skywalker on his painfully acted
journey from young slave and podracer prodigy to cybernetic Dark Lord.
Even if you never realized that Darth Vader is the antihero star of the entire franchise,
there's no question the iconic character is surrounded by some pretty rich mythology.
We now know all that stuff about Darth Vader falling into lava was totally true, but the
mythology behind his name is based on misconceptions.
According to In a Far Away Galaxy, Lucas himself said Darth Vader's name came from the Dutch
"Vader," meaning "father."
"Darth" was simply a variation of "dark," which makes way more sense than "donker,"
which is the Dutch word for "dark."
Imagine a dark lord called Donker Vader.
Yeah, that's not a Star Wars we wanna see.
"I find your lack of faith disturbing."
Anyway, the idea that Darth Vader's name means "dark father" and therefore alludes to Luke's
parentage is not very credible when you consider that Lucas didn't decide Darth Vader was actually
going to be Luke's dad until the second draft of The Empire Strikes Back.
We still don't know, though, if Lucas actually did pick "Vader" because it meant "father,"
but, if he did, it certainly wasn't a way to hint at the big reveal to come... because
Lucas didn't know there was even going to be a big reveal.
The Empire Strikes back opens with Luke getting his ass handed to him by a wampa, which scratches
his face, drags him off to its icy lair, and hangs him upside-down.
Legend says this scene was really just a handy way to explain why Luke's face was all messed
up after actor Mark Hamill got into a car accident in January of 1977.
The accident damaged his left cheekbone and messed up his nose badly enough that doctors
had to repair it with cartilage from his ear.
So his face didn't really look the same in The Empire Strikes Back as it did in A New
Hope.
But Lucas says the wampa scene wasn't written expressly for the purpose of explaining Luke's
injuries.
Instead, it was a typical movie-making device — they just wanted to open the film with
some suspense.
"R2 says the chances of survival are 725 to one."
Carrie Fisher remembered that the scene was altered to account for Luke's injuries, but
that basically just confirms what Lucas said — the scene was already there, but the face
injury was added to help viewers understand the origins of Skywalker's scars.
One of the most iconic lines from The Empire Strikes Back – second only to Vader's Maury
moment…
"You ARE the father!"
… is Han Solo's goodbye to Princess Leia.
She says "I love you," and he says "I know."
It's about as Han Solo-ish as any line ever spoken by Harrison Ford during the trilogy,
and yet it's nowhere to be found in the script.
Somehow, this line inspired a legend — Harrison Ford improvised it while the cameras were
rolling, and everyone marveled at its brilliance.
But like all legends, the true story this is based on is way more boring than what we've
been believing.
It is true that Harrison Ford wrote the line.
According to CBR, in the original script, Leia professes her love, and then Han says
the slightly less Han Solo-ish but still kinda Han Solo-ish,
"Just remember that, 'cause I 'll be back."
Now, Terminator wouldn't hit theaters for another four years, and cinematic history
would be all cockeyed if Han Solo became famous for saying…
"I'll be back."
Fortunately for cinematic history, Ford didn't think the line was quite right, so he suggested
"I know" to director Irvin Kershner — but it was well in advance of the actual shoot.
The only person who didn't seem sure about the whole "I know" thing was George Lucas,
who decided to shoot both versions of the scene and then play them for a test audience,
who reportedly liked the "I know" scene so much that Lucas didn't even bother to test
the other one.
OK, so you had to know this one was coming, right?
Perhaps no other Star Wars character is as despised as Jar Jar Binks.
Jar Jar was supposed to be a good guy, yet the collective hatred for his character dwarfs
anything anyone ever felt for Watto , Boss Nass, or those annoying podracer announcers
whose names we can't remember.
So why was this character so very, very detestable?
There can be only one reason: He was evil.
This actually seems so plausible that one Reddit user came up with a theory that Jar
Jar was actually intended to be a villain, and the internet went, "Oh YEAH that seems
like it could be true."
According to Forbes, the theory even reached the ears of George Lucas, who unsurprisingly
said fans "shouldn't get too excited," so from that we can pretty much glean that it's
false.
However — and this is a hefty, Hutt-sized however — Jar Jar Binks actor Ahmed Best
thinks the theory might make a weird kind of sense, though he remains pretty tight-lipped
about the specifics.
In March 2016, he told YouTuber Jamie Stangroom:
"There's a lot about [the Darth Jar Jar theory] that's true.
There are some things about it that are not true.
Could Jar Jar have evolved into that?
I think the answer is yes."
There you have it, folks — straight from the actor's mouth!