Trivia Tuesday: May 4th – Happy Star Wars Day!

May 4th, 2010 | by Trivia

It’s that special time of year, when lightsabers are brandished and Stormtroopers ride the trolley. No, it’s not quite time for the San Diego Comic-Con, but it is the fourth of May, and I say to you, May the Fourth Be With You [1].

In honor of this great day, I bring to you some fun tidbits about Star Wars.

Now, despite the awesomeness of how this date works, some still dispute if it should be the official Day. Star Wars: A New Hope was originally released on May 25th, 1977, and maintain that it should Star Wars Day. I personally think May the Fourth Be With You is just too good to pass up. And May 25th does honor Star Wars in its own way, as Geek Pride Day.

I’ll start with my favorite bit, something that some of you may have come across in the nearly thirty-three years since A New Hope was released, but it still makes me giggle. In this clip, watch the Stormtrooper on the far right as he walks in the room.

Quick thinking to save the scene, you can hear  one of the other Stormtroopers say ‘See to him.” The sound effect of his helmet cracking the door was reportedly added, though I can’t verify it, and supposedly the man in the suit says he remembers the sound. Adding, or at least upping the audibility of the crack seems more likely though, as Jango Fett (the clone-source for Stormtroopers) conks his head during Revenge of the Sith [3,4]. At least we know Lucasfilm has a bit of a sense of humor.

We all know that Darth Vader was just too much of a villain for one actor; best known as voiced by James Earl Jones, given a face by Sebastian Shaw (and unfortunately Hayden Christensen if I’m going to be fair and list them all), stunt doubled (and did the fight scenes) by Bob Anderson, and embodied by David Prowse. What’s most interesting about this is that David Prowse didn’t know he wouldn’t be the voice of Darth Vader until the theatrical release of A New Hope [2]. George Lucas decided later that a Scottish accent didn’t fit well with the Dark Lord of the Sith, and hired Jones. For the later movies, Prowse felt much more at ease reading his lines, knowing his delivery didn’t need to be perfect.

By my count, there are 449 Star Wars novels [5] with seven to be released over the next year or so. Only 107 are specifically listed ‘young adult’. This count does not include the numerous reference and encyclopedic books. The scope of these novels spans 25,000 years before A New Hope to more than forty years after (given their own reference as ‘BBY’ (Before the Battle of Yavin) and ‘ABY’ (After the Battle of Yavin).

I myself own… twenty-six Star Wars novels and a variety of reference sources. Included among my collection is the first Star Wars novel, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye by Alan Dean Foster. It was written in 1978 [6], after A New Hope but before Empire Strikes Back. This leads to some awkward moments between Luke and Leia, who work as a romantic couple through the book (the author and characters didn’t know any better, but we know better!).

So now that I have unfurled my nerd flag, I can only hope it was worth your entertainment. May the Force be with you, always. Live long and prosper.

Yes. Yes I did go there.

sources:

  1. http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/628586
  2. http://www.darthvader-starwars.com/film-and-tv-2.htm
  3. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Blooper
  4. http://web.archive.org/web/20080504221426/www.starwars.com/site/homingbeacon/61.html
  5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_books
  6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splinter_of_the_Mind’27s_Eye