George Lucas' Star Wars is one of the highest-grossing and most influential movie franchises ever created. The first installment in the franchise, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, has become a cult classic like none other and is rightfully considered a revolutionary movie in the sci-fi genre, as well as one that changed the way movies, are made and marketed.
But while hardcore fans know every single detail about its creation, regular viewers probably aren't aware of just how much went on behind-the-scenes that could have made Star Wars just another failed passion project.
Studios Didn't Want To Make The Movie
Lucas didn't immediately get to spend all his time working on Star Wars. According to The Cinema of George Lucas, Lucas first wrote the script for America Graffiti and brought it to United Artists, who also passed on the space-opera concept he proposed. American Graffiti was picked up by Universal Pictures and Lucas spent two years working on the project before going back to his space-opera concept.
According to The Secret History of Star Wars, United Artists saw potential in the film yet still declined to finance it. Universal Pictures and Walt Disney Productions also declined. Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy also stated that Lucas and producer, Gary Kurtz, persisted in their search for budgeting the project and eventually secured a deal with 20th Century Fox.
Lucas Rewrote The Script Multiple Times - And Then Decided To Split It
The world of Star Wars has expanded over time, with more and more additions to its lore, but even Lucas' first film already introduced numerous details about the galaxy far far away. This, of course, was the result of Lucas carefully planning different aspects of the world he wanted to create.
Lucas allegedly wrote four different versions of the original Star Wars, though the script and its details evolved and varied greatly throughout the process. According to Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, the director had to split the first film into a trilogy after realizing it was too long.
He brought the third draft of the script to 20th Century Fox, which granted him a budget of $5 million before eventually increasing it to $8.25 million. The final script would only be finished when the crew already started filming. The lengthy title of the picture was reduced to "Star Wars" during production, while Luke Starkiller became Skywalker also during this time.
Lucas Had To Create His Own Visual Effects Company Just For The Film
Star Wars was not only difficult to create because of the tight budget, but also because of the technologies needed that simply weren't around at the time. Moreover, Lucas found out that 20th Century Fox's visual effects department had actually been disbanded, which meant that there wouldn't be anyone to work on the effects for the movie.
Thus, in 1975, the director formed Industrial Light & Magic, known simply as ILM, the visual effects company that would become known for its work on Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Star Trek, Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, and many more. According to Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, the visual effects team pioneered the so-called digital motion control photography technique for Star Wars.
There Were Some Issues With Cinematography
Initially, Lucas wanted to hire cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth who had previously worked on Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Unsworth first accepted the job, but then left to work on A Matter of Time. Lucas now had to look for another cinematographer to replace Unsworth and settled on Gilbert Taylor, who had worked on Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.
But problems didn't stop there. Because Lucas was busy with other aspects of production, Taylor had to plan out cinematography on his own. When production did start, Lucas and Taylor would often have disputes over the way certain scenes had to be filmed. Lucas had a background in independent filmmaking and made many lighting- and cinematography-related suggestions, which Taylor considered to be overstepping his boundaries.
Filmmakers Were Behind Schedule As A Result Of A Series Of Unfortunate Events
Principal photography began in Tunisia, where Tatooine was to be filmed. However, due to a series of unfortunate events, the filmmakers fell behind schedule. According to The Cinema of George Lucas, during the first days of shooting, props would malfunction and various electronic devices would break down.
In addition to that, a rainstorm took the country - and the filmmakers - by surprise. Such rainstorms were a rarity in Tunisia, so nobody expected such weather. The rainstorm eventually ended, but Lucas and his team were already behind schedule.
The Cast And Crew Didn't Take The Job Seriously
While Star Wars is rightfully considered a classic now, nobody thought of it as a masterpiece at the time. Even during production, the cast and crew were mostly skeptical about it, considering it unintentionally humorous at times.
According to Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, actor Kenny Baker, who portrayed R2-D2 thought the movie would be a failure while Harrison Ford found Princess Leia's hairstyle strange and Chewbacca "a giant in a monkey suit."
Lucas Was Diagnosed With Hypertension And Exhaustion During Production
But even though the cast and crew seemingly treated the project with less seriousness than Lucas did, they still saw how much he was investing into it. According to Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, the cast would attempt to make Lucas smile as he often looked tired, with the director eventually diagnosed with hypertension and exhaustion during production.
This was the result of all the stress the director had to endure. The studio executives were paranoid because of production falling behind schedule and going over budget (which would become $11 million instead of $8 million). Post-production was no less demanding as re-shoots got more complicated after Mark Hamill got into a car accident too.
Editing Had Its Own Problems
According to The Making of Star Wars, Lucas and editor John Jympson began cutting the movie while filming in Tunisia still went on. Jympson was unaware of the story Lucas intended to tell, so the rough cut he presented to Lucas was quite different from what Lucas envisioned. Halfway through production, Lucas fired Jympson.
Jympson was replaced by Paul Hirsch, Richard Chew, and Marcia Lucas (the director's then-wife). According to Star Wars IV: A New Hope: Lost Scenes from A Sci-Fi Movie Lexicon III, many scenes were cut to improve pacing, including ones at the beginning of the film that introduced Luke. Instead, the focus was shifted to C-3PO and R2-D2.
Early Cut Of The Film Had Mixed Reactions
During post-production, ILM was struggling to create the perfect special effects needed for a movie like Star Wars. This is why the early cut Lucas screened to studio executives and director friends didn't have the special effects in place yet and had a different crawl from the final version among other things.
Lucas was allegedly disappointed by the reactions of his director friends, including Brian De Palma and John Milius. However, Steven Spielberg would later say he was one of the few people who actually enjoyed that cut at the time. On the other hand, studio executives Alan Ladd Jr. and Gareth Wigan loved the film.