George Lucas cast Jake Lloyd and Natalie Portman as Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala because he wanted to cast actors whom physically resembled Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher whom played their children Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa. Lucas and Twentieth Century Fox agreed that he would forego his salary as a director, provided he owns the entire negative of the final cut of the film, as well as ancillary rights of all toys and commercial tie-ins. George Lucas made a similar deal as he did with Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977).
The same name used by NASA to refer to the fact that so few of their attempts to send a probe to Mars were successful, to the point that the missions seemed cursed. “Phantom Menace” was the name of a villain in the “Flash Gordon” comics. They are from the planet Brodo Asogi, and they are represented by Senator Grebleips (Spielberg spelled backwards.)ĭuring the credits Jabba the Hutt is listed as being played by “himself”.Īfter the film’s end credits finish rolling, the sound effect of Darth Vader’s breathing can be heard. Author James Luceno fleshed out this group of aliens in his Star Wars novel, “Cloak of Deception”. George Lucas included them as a tribute to his long-time friend, Steven Spielberg, as well as showing them existing in the same universe. In the Galactic Senate scene, when Queen Amidala is asking for a vote of no confidence, and the whole Senate are on their feet shouting, in the lower left corner you can see that there are E.T. I’ll come up with another apprentice.” The original death scene was reportedly screened to test audiences shortly before the movie’s release and ultimately retained as an alternate take in case the MPAA balked at the more brutal final take. So I had to cut him in half to say this guy’s gone, he’s history, he ain’t coming back. The original plan was for Maul to simply fall down the chute in one piece intead of being bisected, Speaking to Empire shortly after the movie’s release, George Lucas said of the original death scene, “I looked at it and thought this isn’t going to work because, if people like him enough, they are going to want him to come back and they’re going to assume somehow he gets out of it. In early concept art, Windu was drawn as an alien and also with the likeness of concept designer Doug Chiang. It has been speculated that he was up for the part of Mace Windu, but the character’s name was not publicly known before filming started, and it was not specifically written for an African-American until Samuel L. Tupac Shakur (a Star Wars fan since childhood) expressed interest in reading for a role, even lobbying mutual friends of his and George Lucas’ to get them in touch with each other to set up a meeting so he could read, but his tragic murder in September 1996 prevented any such meeting from taking place.