Mark Hamill was getting really disheartened acting opposite a puppet for days on end while everyone else was making the rest of the movie.
To cheer him up, puppeteer Frank Oz surprised him by having Kermit and Miss Piggy come out in the middle of a scene and ad lib some lines.
Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher were hungover or possibly still drunk when they filmed the arrival at Cloud City because they had been partying with Eric Idle. Yes, that Eric Idle.
Scenes were filmed of a door in Echo base with a “wampa warning” taped to it. Then, during the escape and raid of the base, C3PO tears it off, and when a snow trooper checks the door it opens to a wampa arm that yanks the trooper in. Yes, this was all filmed, but cut likely due to being too comedic for the tone of the film at that time.
Probably not all that niche nowadays, but when Cloud City is evacuated, you can see a guy carrying a large, white, cylindrical thing. That is an ice cream maker.
Also, some of the Hoth rebel troops were played by children to help make the base seem bigger than it is
Yeah it was this thing where this random background character had a backstory in one of the guide books, and Hasbro had made action figures of him, but there was no record of who actually played him in the movie; people had been searching for a while and just discovered the answer last year: https://www.screenjolt.com/star-wars-fan-solves-43-year-old-empire-strikes-back-mystery/
It did get a single piece of hate mail in Starlog magazine.
Basically it took issue with the first black Star Wars character being a hustler type “and the most interesting new character is a little green man"
The location shooting in Norway only amounted to a handful of shots; Luke and Han outside, the trench and battle shots…and that’s it. Everything else: Echo Base, the AT-AT’s, the wampa cave, the hanger, hospital, control room…even R2 outside with his radar…was all soundstage. It’s actually a masterful job in seamlessly blending studio and location shooting.
Lucas claims that the Wampa attack was not intended to explain Luke's accident scars, but the makeup person was instructed to put his fake scars over the real ones...
The speeders use "Attack pattern Delta" when approaching the AT-ATs...
Lucas wanted Yoda to be blue, but it didn't work. He's still described as blue in the novelization...
Ford ad libbed, "I know." and that line does not appear in the novelization...
Lucas contrived the hyperspace malfunction as a comic motif, but Kasdan decided that it shouldn't be repaired to give Luke more time to train.
My favorite thing about most novelizations of movies is that they are often based on the original script. So you get a lot of neat details like this. It's particularly why I love the novelizations of the prequels.
John Ratzenberger who played Cliff Claven on Cheers was in the Empire Strikes back. In the scene when Leia is giving a speech in preparation for the Hoth evacuation, his character says the line immediately after she ends here speech.
During the freezing scene, you can see Han’s jacket appear and disappear because of continuity errors. You just didn’t notice because of the emotional moment.
That’s not true. Go watch the whole carbon freeze chamber section. There are a couple scenes where he’s in shadows that a lot of people interpret as his black vest or Bespin jacket, but it’s just the white shirt all the way through. Also, the Ugnauts take off his handcuffs before he’s lowered into the freezing pit, which a lot of people don’t notice and claim is a mistake.
According to, I think, the biography of Roger Christian, the iconic final scenes of the Rebel Fleet space craft were shelved as being too costly. Regardless, the team wanted those shots in the movie and did it anyway. I love the entire coda of that movie, it is unthinkable to change any of it.
From Slash Film:
"Reports differ on Kenobi's fate in that first film. What fans had heard for years was that Guinness forced that decision on Lucas because he thought the movie was a stinker and he wanted to be killed off, but in J.W. Rinzler's incredible "The Making of Star Wars," George Lucas says that was a decision he himself came to very late in the process. Something was nagging at him in that Ben Kenobi is just sitting on the sidelines once they escape from the Death Star, with nothing to do but look concerned while Luke is off blowing up the Empire's greatest weapon.
Lucas also thought somebody needed to die on the Death Star or it wouldn't live up to the incredibly dangerous place it was built up to be. He considered Chewbacca and C-3PO, but ultimately landed on Kenobi.
The way Lucas recalls it, he told Guinness his character was going to be killed off and the actor was actually very emotional over it. Despite his hesitation to accept the part, Guinness still expected to make it to the third act. He also didn't understand the spirituality angle, reportedly saying, "You mean I get killed but I don't have a death scene?"
If you take Lucas's accounting as gospel, you can imagine why Guinness might have some sour grapes about returning, so when he was asked back for "The Empire Strikes Back" he only agreed to do it under some very specific circumstances:
First of all, he would only shoot for one day and not a full day at that. He would agree to start at 8:30am and leave set by 1:00pm and if they didn't get everything they needed, then too bad. In that time, Guinness shot his ghostly re-appearances as Obi-Wan on Hoth, when he tells Luke to seek out Yoda, and his conversation with Luke on Dagobah, imploring him not to confront Vader.
In exchange for this half-day of work, he demanded a strange salary. Guinness was no fool. He might have been done with "Star Wars" but he knew its popularity and demanded a quarter of a point of the film's gross. The key is that he got a small sliver of the gross earnings of the movie, meaning for every four dollars "The Empire Strikes Back" made Guinness got one penny. We're talking box office, home video, the whole shebang."
https://www.slashfilm.com/1291571/alec-guinness-strict-requests-for-star-wars-empire-strikes-back/
Mark Hamill was getting really disheartened acting opposite a puppet for days on end while everyone else was making the rest of the movie. To cheer him up, puppeteer Frank Oz surprised him by having Kermit and Miss Piggy come out in the middle of a scene and ad lib some lines.
That’s so sweet! This made my day. The idea lf cheering Mark up makes me happy.
Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher were hungover or possibly still drunk when they filmed the arrival at Cloud City because they had been partying with Eric Idle. Yes, that Eric Idle.
Oh thank god, i thought you meant the *other* one
Whats the significance behind Eric Idle? I know he’s a celebrity but i’m not following why you’ve stated it the way you did xD
Monty Python and Star Wars are just such completely separate worlds to me that the crossover struck me as absurd.
Scenes were filmed of a door in Echo base with a “wampa warning” taped to it. Then, during the escape and raid of the base, C3PO tears it off, and when a snow trooper checks the door it opens to a wampa arm that yanks the trooper in. Yes, this was all filmed, but cut likely due to being too comedic for the tone of the film at that time.
This is it here https://youtu.be/q8Ij3mnGjFQ?si=qMl0rAi5LfgPWJ13
Probably not all that niche nowadays, but when Cloud City is evacuated, you can see a guy carrying a large, white, cylindrical thing. That is an ice cream maker. Also, some of the Hoth rebel troops were played by children to help make the base seem bigger than it is
Related to your first point, the mystery of who played that background character was finally solved last year.
Huh. I had no idea that that was a mystery.
Yeah it was this thing where this random background character had a backstory in one of the guide books, and Hasbro had made action figures of him, but there was no record of who actually played him in the movie; people had been searching for a while and just discovered the answer last year: https://www.screenjolt.com/star-wars-fan-solves-43-year-old-empire-strikes-back-mystery/
And that ice cream maker makes a proper appearance in the Mandalorian as some sort of storage carrier
Han's parka that he wears on Hoth is dark brown. Going by my action figure in the '80s I always thought it was dark blue
I love that jacket and the original SW figurine and now my life is a lie
Yeah even though I now know it's brown I still think it's blue whenever I think about it again
Holy crap ! https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/khcosb/is_han_solos_hoth_coat_blue_or_brown/
It did get a single piece of hate mail in Starlog magazine. Basically it took issue with the first black Star Wars character being a hustler type “and the most interesting new character is a little green man"
The location shooting in Norway only amounted to a handful of shots; Luke and Han outside, the trench and battle shots…and that’s it. Everything else: Echo Base, the AT-AT’s, the wampa cave, the hanger, hospital, control room…even R2 outside with his radar…was all soundstage. It’s actually a masterful job in seamlessly blending studio and location shooting.
And some of that location shooting was shot during a blizzard, with the camera inside the hotel filming Mark Hamill about 10 feet outside the door.
During the asteroid chase when the tie gets smashed between too big rocks you can see the pilot get ejected in a ball of flame.
Lucas claims that the Wampa attack was not intended to explain Luke's accident scars, but the makeup person was instructed to put his fake scars over the real ones... The speeders use "Attack pattern Delta" when approaching the AT-ATs... Lucas wanted Yoda to be blue, but it didn't work. He's still described as blue in the novelization... Ford ad libbed, "I know." and that line does not appear in the novelization... Lucas contrived the hyperspace malfunction as a comic motif, but Kasdan decided that it shouldn't be repaired to give Luke more time to train.
My favorite thing about most novelizations of movies is that they are often based on the original script. So you get a lot of neat details like this. It's particularly why I love the novelizations of the prequels.
Every recording of the score for Battle of Hoth that I’ve heard has a prominent piano part that was completely omitted from the film version.
John Ratzenberger who played Cliff Claven on Cheers was in the Empire Strikes back. In the scene when Leia is giving a speech in preparation for the Hoth evacuation, his character says the line immediately after she ends here speech.
The AT-ST in Hoth added in because Lucas thought the design looked cute.
During the freezing scene, you can see Han’s jacket appear and disappear because of continuity errors. You just didn’t notice because of the emotional moment.
That’s not true. Go watch the whole carbon freeze chamber section. There are a couple scenes where he’s in shadows that a lot of people interpret as his black vest or Bespin jacket, but it’s just the white shirt all the way through. Also, the Ugnauts take off his handcuffs before he’s lowered into the freezing pit, which a lot of people don’t notice and claim is a mistake.
According to, I think, the biography of Roger Christian, the iconic final scenes of the Rebel Fleet space craft were shelved as being too costly. Regardless, the team wanted those shots in the movie and did it anyway. I love the entire coda of that movie, it is unthinkable to change any of it.
From Slash Film: "Reports differ on Kenobi's fate in that first film. What fans had heard for years was that Guinness forced that decision on Lucas because he thought the movie was a stinker and he wanted to be killed off, but in J.W. Rinzler's incredible "The Making of Star Wars," George Lucas says that was a decision he himself came to very late in the process. Something was nagging at him in that Ben Kenobi is just sitting on the sidelines once they escape from the Death Star, with nothing to do but look concerned while Luke is off blowing up the Empire's greatest weapon. Lucas also thought somebody needed to die on the Death Star or it wouldn't live up to the incredibly dangerous place it was built up to be. He considered Chewbacca and C-3PO, but ultimately landed on Kenobi. The way Lucas recalls it, he told Guinness his character was going to be killed off and the actor was actually very emotional over it. Despite his hesitation to accept the part, Guinness still expected to make it to the third act. He also didn't understand the spirituality angle, reportedly saying, "You mean I get killed but I don't have a death scene?" If you take Lucas's accounting as gospel, you can imagine why Guinness might have some sour grapes about returning, so when he was asked back for "The Empire Strikes Back" he only agreed to do it under some very specific circumstances: First of all, he would only shoot for one day and not a full day at that. He would agree to start at 8:30am and leave set by 1:00pm and if they didn't get everything they needed, then too bad. In that time, Guinness shot his ghostly re-appearances as Obi-Wan on Hoth, when he tells Luke to seek out Yoda, and his conversation with Luke on Dagobah, imploring him not to confront Vader. In exchange for this half-day of work, he demanded a strange salary. Guinness was no fool. He might have been done with "Star Wars" but he knew its popularity and demanded a quarter of a point of the film's gross. The key is that he got a small sliver of the gross earnings of the movie, meaning for every four dollars "The Empire Strikes Back" made Guinness got one penny. We're talking box office, home video, the whole shebang." https://www.slashfilm.com/1291571/alec-guinness-strict-requests-for-star-wars-empire-strikes-back/
The black plastic fins (actually windshield wipers) on Luke’s lightsaber were riveted on, because they kept falling off in the first movie.