The first Star Wars movie, now known as Episode IV - A New Hope, set the tone for the entire film franchise that laid before it. It captured audiences attention and imaginations, and they were fans from there on out. So what if the first movie hadn’t had some of the pivotal scenes it’s known for today? Could that have changed the story enough for viewers to have not connected at the levels they did? Maybe so, and that was almost the case.
When the film was being shot, it went past its allotted shoot dates, and creator George Lucas still needed to capture what we know now as the opening scene in the film. In 2020, Lucas explained to StarWars.com:
"The studio on 'A New Hope,' they just cut us off. There was a lot of stuff that we didn't do that I wanted to do. But we just didn't get to finish the film ... We were going a week over or two weeks over and they said, 'Well, we're just going to cut you off.' ... I said, 'Well, I haven't shot the beginning of the movie.' You know, where Darth Vader comes in and there's that battle and Princess Leia has a conversation with him. None of that had been shot. And they said, 'Well, we don't care. Try to make the movie without it.'"
That’s insane! I know they were taking a gamble on this young filmmaker who had a very different idea for a film than they’d ever seen before, but if someone tells you that they need to shoot the opening scene in their film, you should probably let them. The scene in question features Leah’s ship trying to outrun a star destroyer, only to get caught in a tractor beam and brought upon the star destroyer. It introduces us to C3PO, R2D2, and Darth Vader, and Princess Leah, and kicks right into action! Without this scene, and seeing Leah give the Death Star plans to R2, the film wouldn’t have the strong story base to move forward. This is the heart of the premise, and there’s no way to build without it.
It’s a good thing Lucas was able to make his opening scene happen without the studio’s support. It’s funny to think of how silly those executives must have felt after seeing what Star Wars became!
via: /Film
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