George Lucas Made Three Changes To The Empire Strikes Back After Its Release
"Star Wars" creator George Lucas can be notoriously picky about updating and tweaking his work, as demonstrated by the additions he made to the original trilogy for their 1997 theatrical re-release. But when it came to "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back," he truly went above and beyond. During the film's initial limited theatrical run before going nationwide, Lucas decided he wanted to go back in and tweak the film a little more. That's right — even though "The Empire Strikes Back" was already in theaters, he wanted to make even more edits. This could have been a potential logistical nightmare, but the folks at Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) somehow pulled it together.
In a retrospective for the 40th anniversary of "The Empire Strikes Back" for StarWars.com, ILM general manager Tom Smith and ILM effects cameraman Ken Ralston recalled the director's zany requests to change things after the movie was already in theaters. Not only did he want to go back in and add new footage, which meant reshoots, new effects, and sending out new cuts of the film to theaters, but he wanted multiple things changed! Usually, directors hold on until the movie has been out for a decade or two before releasing a director's cut the way they really wanted it, but apparently Lucas just couldn't wait.
Changing a confusing ending
In the retrospective, Smith remembers that shortly after the premiere of "The Empire Strikes Back" in May 1980, Lucas called him up on the phone to explain that he needed more shots for the movie. Convinced that he hadn't heard Lucas right, he reminded the director that the movie was already in theaters, to which Lucas allegedly replied, "No, no, no, it's not in all the theaters." Lucas felt that the ending of "Empire" was unclear and audiences wouldn't know where different characters were in the geography of outer space. The ending sees the heroes escape Cloud City and split up after reuniting with the Rebel Alliance, but in the original release that ended up in approximately 100 theaters, Lucas didn't think the locations of the Millennium Falcon or the rebel medical ship were clear enough and audiences might be confused.
The crew had three weeks before the movie's wide release, which meant they had to rush to create three new shots that helped solidify the whereabouts of the various characters. Effects cameraman Ralston remembered that he thought the whole thing was a joke, but he realized that Lucas and co. were deadly serious when they called him to meet at the Lucasfilm corporate offices to help design the shots. In the end, the sequence clearly sets up the fact that Luke (Mark Hamill) and Leia (Carrie Fisher) are on one ship, while Lando (Billy Dee Williams) and Chewie (Peter Mayhew) are on another, headed to try and rescue Han from Jabba the Hutt. It cleared things up to Lucas' satisfaction and helped lead into the next film, "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi," creating one of the best movie trilogies of all time.