Did You Know?

Things you might not know about Revenge of the Sith.


• Anakin's scar on his right eye changes, the part below his eye moves slightly down and lengthens.

• Obi-Wan Kenobi says the series' trademark line, "I have a bad feeling about this," during one of the first scenes of the film. See also Star Wars (1977), Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983), Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999), and Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002).

• WILHELM SCREAM: Early on in the film during the dogfight, as a laser cannon is destroyed one of the clone troopers is sent flying from the explosion and screams a Wilhelm.

• When General Grevious' ship is hit, it starts to fall sharply down towards the planet. There is not sufficient gravity to make the ship fall that sharply. What gravitational pull there is would have the ship orbit around the planet for decades, eventually coming down.

• After the opening battle, as the transport lands at the senate building in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen the Millenium Falcon can be seen landing.

• Director Cameo: [George Lucas] The sound of General Grievous' coughing is George Lucas's own coughing. After developing a bad cough during production, Lucas had it recorded and used as Grievous' own cough.

• General Grievous' breathing problems in this film are caused by his brief encounter with Mace Windu in the Clone Wars cartoons. Mace Windu "force-gripped" Grievous as the General was making off with Palpatine, crushing the cyborg's chest panel.

• The pearl shoulder straps of Padme's dress disentangle between shots.

• Yoda rubs his head while deep in thought. George Lucas requested this of the animators as an homage to Takashi Shimura's signature gesture in Shichinin no samurai (1954)

• Anthony Daniels (without C-3PO costume), George Lucas and his daughters Katie and Amanda Lucas all have cameo appearances in the Opera scene, as well as several members of the special effects team (Rob Coleman and John Knoll amongst others) and a number of characters from earlier Star Wars movies.

• Director Cameo: [George Lucas] The blue skinned Baron Papanoida who appears just outside the entrance to Palpatine's private box at the Galaxies Opera House.

• Hyperspace's Set Diarist and Star Wars Insider columnist Pablo Hidalgo appears in the establishing shot of the interior of the Opera House, walking down the aisle dressed in a long green robe as Janu Godalhi.

• During the opera on Coruscant, you can hear the sound of people cheering and clapping, but when the audience is shown, they are all sitting still, hands in their lap.

• As Anakin settles into Palpatine's viewing box, take a look at box adjacent to the Chancellor's. It is filled with notable names from Industrial Light & Magic. Seated from left to right (first row) are Visual Effects Producer Jill Brooks, Animation Supervisor Rob Coleman, Visual Effects Producer Janet Lewin, (and back row) Visual Effects Supervisor Roger Guyett, Visual Effects Producer Denise Ream, and Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll. If you look at the shots that favor Palpatine during his wistful retelling of the Darth Plagueis yarn, you'll see Knoll sitting over his shoulder.

• The Clone Trooper vehicles featured are the eight-wheeled Juggernaut armored personnel carriers, while the mini two-legged AT-RT light walkers, and the AT-AP pod walkers are forerunners to the Imperial AT-ST mini walkers featured in Episodes V and VI.

• Clone Commander Bacara's number is 1138, in reference to George Lucas' THX 1138 (1971).

• The newest addition to Seperaist army are the amphibious Crab Droids, and the NR-N199 Tank Battle droids which are in fact amphibious versions of the Corporate Alliance Tank Battle droids first mentioned in Episode II.

• In the Wookiee army scene, there are only 10 guys in Wookiee suits. The rest were computer duplicated.

• The battle with Wookiees dates back to the earliest screenplays of Star Wars (1977). Originally, the Wookiees were supposed to help the Rebels conquer an Imperial bunker. This idea was the basis for the Battle of Endor in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983), but instead of using Wookiees, George Lucas decided to use a smaller furry race and call them Ewoks.

• When Obi-Wan finds General Grievous on Utupau, his first words are, "Hello, there." In Star Wars (1977), when Obi-Wan is first introduced, his words to R2-D2 are, "Hello, there."

• When Mace Windu gets on the air transport and tells Anakin to stay behind, the shadow of the vehicle disappears in the shot when Anakin is seen alone, but reappears in the next shot when we see the vehicle take off.

• During the scene where Padme in her apartment and Anakin at the Jedi temple look out across the city toward each other, the position of the setting sun and the direction of its light across their respective locations is not consistent given what we are shown about their relative positions and the directions they are facing.

• In the scene where Anakin enters the temple accompanied by the army of clones, the sound is of lots of people marching together, but the visual shows them walking out of step with each other.

• The young Jedi that rushes from the Temple towards Bail Organa's speeder during the Jedi Purge is played by George Lucas' son Jett.

• The hot rod speeder car driven by Sen. Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits) is based on the front of a Tucker that is parked at Skywalker Ranch.

• Bail Organa's Corellian Corvette (Tantive IV) (the one with the white walls) is the same ship as Princess Leia is captured in during Star Wars (1977).

• When Anakin arrives at Mustafar he tells R2-D2 to stay with the ship. As Anakin walks away he puts his hood on. His right hand (his mechanical hand covered by a glove) has somehow turned back into flesh again.

• The button Padme pushes to start her ship near the end of the film is the same "magic" button that has two functions in "Attack Of The Clones". It's shot in exactly the same way and is a deliberate joke.

• During Anakin and Obi Wan's final fight, bodies on the floor appear and disappear between shots.

• In the scene where Anakin is choking Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan is holding his own lightsaber, then it cuts and he's holding Anakin's lightsaber.

• After their climactic duel, Obi-Wan can be seen picking up Anakin's lightsaber, which he later gives to Anakin's son Luke in Episode IV.

• During the scene when Yoda enters a room to confront Darth Sidious and knocks the two guards unconscious using the force, the position of the guard's bodies shift during their fight scene and are positioned (conspicuously conveniently) out of the way.

• At Hayden Christensen's request, George Lucas had a new Darth Vader suit made to fit him, rather than reuse the one in the original trilogy and have a different actor play Vader.

• Hayden Christensen is himself wearing the Darth Vader suit this time; it was specially molded from plastic to fit him. Height elevating lifts were incorporated into Vader's boots to make Christiansen appear the same height as David Prowse, who played Darth Vader in the original trilogy. A similar trick was used during the filming of Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) when the much smaller Bob Anderson doubled for Prowse during the fight scenes.

• George Lucas deliberately made the Darth Vader suit top-heavy (for instance adding weight on the helmet) to make Hayden Christensen not appear "too accustomed" to it in the movie.

• When Vader is being fitted with the helmet and subsequently breaks free of the shackles, Lucas decided at the last minute to change the position of Vader's arms from up to down by his side (the original shot can be seen in the trailers). This is why, after breaking free from the bonds, Vader appears to raise his arms, when in fact it is the necessary transition from CG arms to live action arms.

• C3-PO has the last words in this movie ("Oh, no!") and the first words in Star Wars (1977) ("Did you hear that? They've shut down the main reactor.")

• In the final sequence on Tatooine, when Obi Wan is handing the infant Luke to Beru, he opens his cloak to bring the baby out as he approaches her. This is first seen in a long shot from above. There is a cut to a two-shot, and he opens his cloak and extracts the baby again.

• The final scene on Tatooine, where Obi-Wan Kenobi delivers the infant Luke to his aunt and uncle, is often referred to as the "Harry Potter scene". Composer John Williams included a small 11-tone musical cue in the scene reminiscent of his score for _Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone (2001)_ . It can be heard when Obi-Wan arrives at Owen and Beru's house.

• George Lucas filmed a single shot for the movie in the Tunisian desert during the production of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), to avoid the inconvenience of having to fly the team back out and shoot three years later. Lucas himself has said it was a single shot, not a scene, and it did not include Ewan McGregor delivering Luke to Owen and Beru, contrary to rumor, as McGregor was not in Tunisia for filming.

• The last scene of the film, which shows the baby Luke being handed over to Owen and Beru, was filmed during location shooting for Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) because of the civil unrest that was brewing in that part of the world at the time and Lucas knew that he wouldn't be able to go back.

• Actors Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen trained for two months in fencing and fitness in preparation for their fight sequences.

• Hayden Christensen gained 24.2 pounds (11 kilograms) for this film. He did so by eating six meals a day.

• Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu) said he knew that he must die in this film, so he told George Lucas he would only do the film if Mace Windu goes out in a blaze of glory and not "like some sucka". On an American late-night talk show, he confirmed that he did indeed have a meaningful death scene; and he does not go out like "some punk".

• The planet name "Utapau" appears in the early drafts of two previous Star Wars films. In Lucas's first draft of the very first movie, Utapau was the home planet of Kane, Anakin and Deak Starkiller. The planet's desert terrain eventually became the planet Tatooine. Utapau was also the original name for Naboo in the first draft of the screenplay for Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999).

• The original design of Anakin had him sporting a mohawk, a tattoo on his right arm and a shredded looking design to his Jedi robes. George Lucas said that it was "too much". The design was later changed to traditional robes and long hair in a pony-tail. Hayden Christensen thought it was "too pretty". Finally, they settled on the design similar to Obi-Wan's look in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002).

• One of the early concepts for General Grievous was a small child sitting on a floating chair, guarded by two IG88 droids from Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980). George Lucas rejected this look as a child would not be taken seriously as the deadliest hand to hand fighter the galaxy has seen, which is how he wanted Grievous to be portrayed. Instead, part of the final look for General Grievous' face was inspired by the shape of a bathroom detergent spray nozzle.

• The original blueprints of the Jedi Council chamber in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) & Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) called for the set to be elevated off the floor, providing room for puppeteers. Now with digital aliens occupying the Council seats, such elevation wasn't necessary, but was still incorporated into the set for Episode III.

• Bail Organa's ship at the end is a real set. No blue screen work was used for those scenes.

• Members of StarWars.com's "Hyperspace" got to determine the look of Obi-Wan Kenobi's new astromech droid R4-G9 by entering a poll on starwars.com between July and August of 2003. Presented with four different color schemes, they picked the bronze and copper design (not unlike the red domed R4-P17 from Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)). Naturally this droid became one of the earliest action figures released for Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005).

• The Darth Vader mask for this film was rebuilt from scratch, using a new digital design to computer-lathe the base master, from which molds were made to cast the on-screen costume masks. The resulting masks are, for the first time in Star Wars history, truly symmetrical.

• In Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), The look of the Clone troopers was a cross between the Mandalorian armour worn by Jango Fett and the storm troopers of Star Wars (1977), Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). In this movie, the look of the clone troopers edges a bit more towards the look of the stormtroopers, but still retains a few elements of the Mandalorian armour.

• A process of applying chrome to rubber was developed during production, allowing lightsaber hilts to be made of rubber and used in stunts without hurting the actors.

• The role of Captain Antilles was originally offered to Denis Lawson, who played Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy.

• Gary Oldman had agreed to be the voice of General Grievous, but pulled out of the film because it was being made using actors who are not part of the Screen Actor's Guild, of which Oldman is a member. The role was read by Duncan Young on set, and finally voiced by Matthew Wood, who, being a Lucasfilm employee, submitted his reading under the name of Alan Smithee.

• Tom Stoppard helped George Lucas write the dialogue for the film.

• Hayden Christensen was quoted in Playboy stating that Tom Stoppard had rewritten Lucas' dialog to it a more "human" dimension.

• Was shot entirely on Sony's HDCAM SR digital video format using F950 digital cameras. George Lucas has even said that he plans to never shoot a movie on film again.

• The entire movie was shot on the Sony HDC-F950 High Definition camera. The Camera itself retails for about $150,000

• Francis Ford Coppola suggested Christopher Neil to George Lucas to be the dialog coach. Lucas said that given the emotional intensity of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005), and the fact that he rarely has time to converse with the actors, it would be ideal for someone else to be there to get the strongest performances possible.

• During production the Mon Calamari opera was nicknamed "Squid Lake".

• Shaak Ti had two death scenes filmed. One where General Grievous kills her aboard the Federation Cruiser and another where Anakin Skywalker kills her during the raid of The Jedi Temple. Both scenes were cut from the film.

• Keisha Castle-Hughes filmed all of her scenes in just one day.

• Ian McDiarmid did all of his own stunts, though a fight double was trained for the light-saber battles. Furthermore, the 60-year-old actor has stated in numerous interviews that he was pleased that his character was finally involved in some action sequences

• The character Mas Amedda is played by two actors in this film: Jerome Blake and David Bowers. Blake played the role previously in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). Likewise, Bowers played the role previously in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002). In this film, For the scenes shot in Australia during principal photography, Bowers played the part. For new scenes/pickups shot in England, Blake reprised the role.

• Bai Ling had filmed several scenes for the movie that were later cut. There was a rumor that George Lucas cut these scenes after Bai Ling posed for Playboy. He has, however, denied this rumor and has said that her scenes were cut 8 months before she posed for Playboy, and the photos had nothing to do with his decision.

• Originally, a young Han Solo was going to make an appearance in the film, living among the Wookies on Kashyyyk.

• The Wookiee costumes from this film sport a new arterial system that pump ice cold water to help cool down the actor wearing the suit.

• As Yoda has been created digitally since Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), one of the puppets of Yoda created for the filming of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) was used as a reference point for the ease of actors on-set during re-shoots in late summer 2004. Time in the Lucasfilm archives had not been kind to the puppet, which had acquired an incidentally comically contorted look on its face.

George Lucas allowed his friend Steven Spielberg to design some of the action sequences, including Yoda's duel with Darth Sidious, and Obi-Wan's fight with General Grievous. Spielberg also consulted on other scenes, such as the climactic battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin.

• Although no live-action location filming was done during principal photography, post-production filming was done in Thailand, Switzerland and China to represent background plates for the Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk.

• All shots of C-3PO had the entire green screen set reflecting in his shiny gold armor, so digital effects artists in post-production had to digitally repaint C-3PO's armor frame by frame to remove any traces of the set.

• There are over 2,200 special effects shots in this film, more than Episode I and II combined. Star Wars (1977) only had 350 such shots.

• This film marks Peter Mayhew's first return to the big screen since Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). Between the two films, the only other movie he has done was Dragonball GT: Gokû gaiden! Yûki no akashi wa sû-shin-chû (1997) (TV), made for TV in which he voices one of the characters.

• Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) and Kenny Baker (R2-D2) are the only actors to appear in all six "Star Wars" films. In second place is Frank Oz (Yoda) who appeared or performed a voice in five of the films and in third place are James Earl Jones (voice of Darth Vader), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) and Ian McDiarmid (Supreme Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious) who all appear in four of the films (unless one counts McDiarmid appearing in the 2004 DVD Special Edition in which he replaces the old actor and reprises his role as Palpatine in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)). The character of Obi-Wan Kenobi also appeared in all six films but was played by two different actors, Sir Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor.

• In August 2004, a rumor started floating around the Internet that George Lucas had decided to make Episodes VII, VIII and IX after all, after the supposed discovery that Lucasfilm employees had signed non-disclosure agreements barring them from speaking about the films. Lucas later refuted the rumor, stating he still has no intention of making a third trilogy.

• A subscription service offered by Lucasfilm offered fans the chance to watch various stages of the production via a Webcam

• The first teaser trailer (released on 5 November 2004) was code-named "Sand Dogs".

• The cans containing reels of the film were appropriately but falsely marked with the title "The Bridge" for at least one pre-release screening.