When Star Wars was first released in 1977, it quickly became one of the most iconic films
of all time, spawning a franchise of unrelenting popularity.
However, behind the scenes, so much overall weirdness occurred during filming, you'd think
there was some kind of curse at play.
Here are a few bizarre things that happened on the set of Star Wars.
In 1976, filming for A New Hope began in Tunisia.
On the second day of filming, heavy rain prevented any work from being done… the first winter
rain to fall in that region of Tunisia in 50 years.
Sandstorms destroyed both film equipment and sets.
On top of that, there were droid problems.
R2-D2's suit was constantly breaking down in the heat, and it would take entire days
of filming just to get a few seconds of him rolling a few feet.
When Anthony Daniels took his first steps in his C-3PO costume, according to People,
the left leg piece shattered and injured his foot.
"looks like you boys have seen a lot of action."
Go ahead and make the Han and Leia connection,
because Carrie Fisher already did.
She confirmed in her book The Princess Diarist: "It was Han and Leia during the week, and
Carrie and Harrison during the weekend."
She was 19 years old at the time.
Ford was 33… and married with two kids.
Fisher said the three-month affair was "intense," but don't take her word for it.
In the book, she claims she couldn't recall much of the relationship due to
"...the brutal strength of Harrison's preferred strain of pot."
Well, at least now we know what Han Solo was smuggling.
Ford had precious little to say about the fling.
"No I literally remember three times that we, I of course, made some oblique reference
to it and he went, 'ohh mmm.'"
Maybe it was the "brutal strength" of his pot.
Like A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back also
encountered historic weather problems when it began filming in Norway in 1979.
While blizzards were perfect for the snow planet of Hoth, the sub-zero temperature was
less than ideal for the cast and crew.
In what ended up being one of Northern Europe's most severe winters in history, it was often
too cold to even use any filming equipment outdoors.
So, what did the crew do?
They shot most scenes just steps away from their hotel.
When it came time for Harrison Ford to shoot his scenes, multiple avalanches prevented
him from traveling by train.
He ended up having to ride a snowplow to set.
It's a shame he didn't film his road trip for the outtakes.
During the filming of The Empire Strikes Back,
it was nothing but revelry on-set.
While shooting in London, Carrie Fisher rented Monty Python trooper Eric Idle's home.
One night during a party with the Rolling Stones, Idle made Fisher and Harrison Ford
a special drink.
"That they called a Tunisian death drink which they then shared with Harrison and myself.
So when we arrived on cloud city you can still see the effects and we hadn't slept at all"
Fisher recalled to The Daily Beast: "We were still drunk when we arrived in Cloud
City the next day.
We don't really smile a lot in the movie, but there, we're smiling."
Fisher also admitted to doing stuff on the set.
So there you have it: in the era of DARE, your childhood heroes were doing blow with
the Mick Jagger.
Star Wars enthusiasts know that Frank Oz,
the legendary muppeteer, played Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back.
However, to successfully manipulate the Yoda puppet on the Dagobah set, Oz endured painful
circumstances unlike anything you could think of.
Weighing 175 pounds and standing at 6'2'', Oz had to cram himself into a small bunker
to keep out of sight while working.
Even more difficult was that the oil used to create the murky atmosphere gave Oz such
bad nausea, he reportedly had to wear a gas mask.
While inside his bunker, Oz could neither hear nor see what was going on above him,
so a TV monitor and radio earphones were installed to help him follow the action.
It took around four hours of work to capture just two lines of dialogue.
"do or do not, there is no try"
During one especially difficult work day,
the iconic muppet Miss Piggy showed up in the middle of what was supposed to be an extremely
serious moment between Yoda and Luke.
It was a nice moment of levity, considering that Oz referred to his time on Dagobah as:
"...one of the hardest things I've ever done in 20 years of performing."
To perfectly capture the forest moon of Endor
for Return of the Jedi, the crew filmed in the vast forests of the Northern California
town of Crescent City.
Soon, a rumor began to spread that Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca, had to be
accompanied by a group of crew members wearing brightly-colored outfits for fear that he
might be mistaken for the legendary Bigfoot and shot by hunters.
As silly as this whole story sounds, the forests of the Pacific Northwest have been infamous
for Bigfoot sightings, so it was a very real concern.
For over 30 years, this story was just an outrageous rumor, until Reddit users asked
Peter Mayhew, who was kind enough to confirm the rumor as fact.
The trouble with those wacky Ewoks in Return
of the Jedi began with their costumes.
The designers tried but were unable to make the costumes' eyelids and mouths move.
This gave the Ewoks a sort of wooden appearance, making them equal parts cuddly and nightmare-inducing.
The actors also frequently overheated in their costumes, with one telling People in 1983:
"The costumes were like saunas.
The wardrobe people were constantly bringing us Gatorade."
The actors created some memorable stories from their behind-the-scenes trysts as well.
J.W.
Rinzler, who wrote The Making of Return of the Jedi, said that the Ewok performers often
used their dressing rooms for secret lovemaking: "A few people had funny stories about having
to knock on any doors that contained private places"
So now you know: the Ewok actors were getting steamy both in AND out of their costumes.
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