Let’s be honest, as much as we love lightsaber duels and Death Star explosions, the real drama sometimes happened off-screen. I mean, half the time George Lucas didn’t even know if the movie would make it. From accidents on set to moments that nearly shut down production, here are a few times the behind-the-scenes of Star Wars was way more intense than the movies themselves.
1. How ILM Risked Their Lives in the Jungle to Film Yavin 4
Hard to believe this all went down just two months before Star Wars: A New Hope hit theaters. While George Lucas was still in England finishing the film, part of the ILM crew was halfway across the world in Guatemala, fighting off rain, bugs, and jungle heat to capture one of the most iconic shots in the movie: the Rebel base on Yavin 4.
As detailed in J.W. Rinzler’s The Making of Star Wars, ILM’s Richard Edlund, Richard Alexander, and their guide Pepi Lenzi were sent on what turned into a full-blown adventure story. They carried over 1,200 pounds of gear, including a 1930s Technorama camera, and boarded a barely functioning DC-3 plane covered in oil and packed with crates, boxes, and even chickens. “Central America is a haven for used airplanes,” Edlund recalled. “It was really funky; oil was just dribbling down the sides of the plane.”
After landing on what was basically a strip of mud in the jungle, the crew made their way to the Jungle Inn, where they stayed in small huts surrounded by wildlife. “It was really quite romantic,” Alexander remembered. “Big peacocks running around, snakes slithering all over the place. It rained every now and then, but it was about ninety degrees; the humidity was so heavy that Richard was blowing smoke rings that would stay in the air for about twenty minutes.”
The team then trekked several miles through thick jungle to reach the ancient Mayan temples of Tikal. “George had a picture in mind as to what he wanted,” Edlund said. “We had storyboards, and I had already shot the pirate ship that goes in one scene, so I had that clip to match.” When they finally found the right vantage point atop Temple III, they carried their heavy equipment up to a narrow six-foot-wide ledge hundreds of feet above the ground.
But here’s the part that makes this story legendary: the Rebel lookout post seen in the final movie wasn’t some high-budget prop. It was literally built out of two $28 trash cans. “The biggest box in our luggage was a trash can,” Alexander said. “The guard’s little post was really two $28 trash cans joined together and stuck on an aluminum pole with guide wires.”
Model maker Lorne Peterson later joined the group and was immediately convinced to climb into the makeshift tower and act as the Rebel lookout. His “scanner” was just a modified Minolta spot meter with batteries taped on to make it look more sci-fi.
2. Hayden Christensen Begged George Lucas to Let Him Be Inside the Vader Suit
I always thought the moment Anakin becomes Darth Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith had someone else inside the suit. But turns out, Hayden Christensen actually fought to wear it himself, and the story behind that is pretty awesome.
That final transformation scene could’ve easily gone to someone else. The original Vader actor, David Prowse, was 6’7”, towering over Hayden, who’s only 6 feet tall. But Hayden wasn’t having it. He personally asked George Lucas to let him wear the suit, even though the height difference meant the costume team would have to build a special version just for him.
“They were really nice to allow me to get into the Vader suit,” Hayden said during an interview. “They could have just put some really tall guy in it and gotten away with it. But I begged and pleaded, so they built a suit that actually fit me.”
To make him look like the towering Sith Lord, they had to bulk him up with a “big muscle suit” underneath. Hayden joked that it felt like “one of those sumo wrestling suits you get into at a fair,” which wasn’t exactly intimidating at first. But once the polished black armor and helmet went on, it suddenly became real, he was Darth Vader now.
You’d think putting on the suit would feel powerful, but Hayden said it was actually the opposite. “It was really quite the opposite,” he admitted. “I didn’t really have any peripheral vision, so my sight was limited. Plus, all the sound around me was muffled, which made me feel disoriented. It was a heavy costume, and I was walking in five-inch stilts to compensate for the height difference. It was not the most comfortable thing to have to spend more than 10 minutes in.”
Still, the costume team made sure he got at least one cool bonus — a built-in breathing device. “They put a little breathing apparatus in the costume,” Hayden said. “So when I came out on stage among the crew, I had the whole Darth Vader breathing going on. I was just trying to keep the sweat out of my eyes and not fall down.”
3. Hoth Filming in The Empire Strikes Back Was Literal Weather Hell
If you thought Hoth looked cold in The Empire Strikes Back, the truth behind the camera was even worse. The cast and crew filmed those icy scenes in Finse, Norway, right in the middle of one of the worst snowstorms the region had seen in years. The blizzard was so bad that train lines were shut down, and the crew was stranded at their hotel, completely snowed in.
Originally, the plan was to shoot the Tauntaun rescue scene about 90 minutes away on a glacier. But according to Mark Hamill in a 2020 interview with StarWars.com, the storm changed everything:
“It was one of the worst snowstorms in I don’t know how many years. We wound up filming right outside the lodge. I mean, if you turned the camera around you saw people on their balconies having their hot chocolate as Harrison [Ford] and I were acting next to a dead Tauntaun.”
So yeah — those scenes where Luke and Han look like they’re freezing to death? They were. The crew was bundled up in heavy goggles and masks, while Hamill had to stand outside with fake snow packed into his eyebrows. He recalled how the makeup artist, Graham Freeborn, kept yelling:
“Get a little more snow on his face!”
Hamill added,
“You’d go as long as you could and then you’d try to get in a tent and get warm until they needed you again.”
Even Harrison Ford got stranded in the snow at one point, completely stuck in the blizzard.
Hamill later joked that shooting in Tunisia for Tatooine was easier, saying, “You can handle that better than bitter cold.” And honestly, after hearing that, it’s hard to disagree.
4. Rushing Star Wars in Tunisia: Rainstorms, Broken Props, and C-3PO’s Painful Injury
The original Star Wars shoot in Tunisia looked like a dream, bright desert skies, endless dunes, and a perfect stand-in for Tatooine. In reality? It was a production nightmare.
From the very first day, things started falling apart. The R2-D2 units constantly broke down because sand kept jamming the motors, forcing the crew to stop every few minutes to dig grit out of the droids. The desert heat melted electronics and fried film equipment.
And then, just to make sure everyone suffered equally, a freak rainstorm hit. Imagine that — the desert planet getting drenched. Sets collapsed, gear short-circuited, and filming had to be halted as crew members scrambled to cover everything with tarps. According to The Making of Star Wars by J.W. Rinzler, the downpour caused one of the first major production delays of the film.
But no one had it worse than Anthony Daniels, the man inside C-3PO. Daniels has said in interviews and his memoir I Am C-3PO that during a scene, his metal leg piece cracked open, slicing his foot. The pain was so bad he could barely walk, but the show had to go on — he finished filming with his foot bandaged inside the golden boot.
“Every step was agony,” Daniels recalled. “The costume had cut through my shoe and into my flesh. I didn’t dare tell anyone at the time — we were already so far behind.”
Between the malfunctioning droids, broken costumes, and a desert storm that turned Tatooine into a mud pit, Tunisia nearly broke the production. Yet somehow, out of all that chaos, came A New Hope.