In case you didn’t know, today is ‘Star Wars’ day and if you see various posts on social media with “May The 4th Be With You” don’t get too alarmed. The ‘Star Wars’ franchise is the first film that became a part of the modern pop culture and is probably the most valuable franchise in the world at the moment —Yes, it beats the entire MCU as well.
May 4th is celebrated as ‘Star Wars’ day all over the world and it has nothing to do with the release of the original film in 1977. The movie has a popular phrase, “May the Force be with you” which is used by wise Jedis to wish luck for their companions. Fans obviously use a little wordplay and ever since then ‘May the Fourth be with you’ has been synonyms with the franchise.
So in order to celebrate this special day, we decided to compile some interesting facts about the franchise you probably aren’t aware of:
1. The franchise has the most successful toy line ever where over 250 million action figures have been sold between 1978 and 1986. Since then, you can only imagine how many action figures the franchise has managed to sell thanks to the new movies.
© Lucasfilm
2. ‘The Force Awakens’ is the third highest grossing movie of all time as the movie managed to make over $2 billion worldwide.
© Lucasfilm
3. Darth Vader tops the ‘Greatest Villain of All Time’ list and will probably stay there for a few more decades. Yes, Thanos doesn’t even come close to the Sith Lord.
© Lucasfilm
4. Darth Vader’s iconic voice was achieved using a scuba regulator and was voiced by none other than James Earl Jones
© Lucasfilm
5. Chewbacca’s character and his idiosyncrasies were based on George Lucas’ dog. The dog was also the inspiration for the name of Indiana Jones.
© Lucasfilm
6. It took at least 10 people to operate Jabba The Hutt.
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7. “I have a bad feeling about this” became a running gag for the franchise and is said in every Star Wars Movie
8. Darth Vader telling Luke Skywalker his actual parentage is probably the most iconic moment in cinema history. However, everyone remembers the quote wrong. Vader never said ‘Luke, I am your father.’ Instead, he said ‘No, I am your father.’
© Lucasfilm
9. Yoda has more of an Indian connection than you think. George Lucas often used words from different languages. That’s probably how he came up with the name ‘Yoda’ as it means “warrior” in Sanskrit.
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10. When Han, Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 get caught up in an Asteroid field in ‘Empire Strikes Back’, we were fearful of the group’s certain death. However, you may not have noticed as one of the Asteroids was actually a potato being used as a prop.
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11. Han Solo almost dies towards the end of the ‘Return of The Jedi’ however George Lucas changed the ending as he thought killing off main characters would affect toy sales.
© Lucasfilm
12. Yoda’s species name is entirely unknown to the ‘Star Wars’ universe.
© Lucasfilm