Star Wars is one of the most popular franchises of all time, with six theatrical films which fans have been watching over and over again: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. The seventh movie of the installment, which is highly anticipated, will be released this December. However, if you haven’t thought of making a reservation yet, you might have to wait until next year. This is the magnitude of popularity of Star Wars. In spite of this, there are many fans who want more. For those with curious minds, many have written spin-offs, either as novels or comics. Some of these are official, and some not. And we mustn’t forget the huge fanfiction base this series has.

However we won’t get into that now. We compiled a list of the top 6 curious moments from the Star Wars history. Take a look.

1. The First Sequel

At the beginning, no one could tell if Star Wars would become truly successful or not. The director, George Lucas, had to have a plan B, a sequel movie on a lower budget. Thus Alan Dean Foster was hired to write a novel as a sequel. This novel would be later on adapted for the big screen. However, Han Solo was completely cut out, since Harrison Ford didn’t commit at that time for any sequels.

The events of the novel, titled “Splinter of the Mind’s Eye”, happened on just one planet in order to avoid expensive costs for for the movie. Leia and Luke basically end up stranded on this planet which happens to be the place where Darth Vader is setting into motion one of his evil plans. The siblings had all sorts of weird flirty moments, as well as one when Luke slaps Leia. Thankfully, we never saw this on the big screen.

2. The Casino

Also during the 1980s, a comic strip about how Luke Skywalker and Boba Fett invented snowboarding was published. But wait, it gets weirder and weirder. What was more surprising was the fact that Luke had the mission to get inside the Casino Royale on the Gambler’s World planet and steal some winnings from the Emperor. At the Casino, Luke gets really into a certain game named “Cosmic Chance”. The game featured a huge ball which had pagan symbols engraved all over it. Luke seems to have a lot of luck with the game and wins a lot of money. However, it becomes quite clear that he used the Force to cheat the game. What a disappointment.

3. The Radio Show

As with most of the movies, the Star Wars franchise had a lot of deleted scenes. In the 1980s these special scenes were detailed during a radio show. Along with many funny but necessary scenes, listeners also found out about the true meaning of a certain scene. While Uncle Owen and Luke were buying droids from the Jawas, they left R2-D2 behind and selected R5-D4 and C-3PO. At that moment, R5 exploded out of a sudden, which seems to be a reference to being sold to slavers. The radio show revealed that is was R2 who sabotaged R5, and this has been confirmed by a Star Wars Encyclopedia.

4. The Ewoks’ Lifestyle

“The Adventures of Teebo” is a children’s book about the lives of the Ewoks, the creatures that look like teddy bears but are nothing like them. We find out from the book that they are an oppressed nation on Endor, being constantly chased by some dark hairy monsters riding huge spiders and wielding pitchforks. However, these guys are not the villains. The title belongs to the Duloks, a nastier version of Ewoks, who are trying to eat all the Ewok babies. Not quite a children’s story after all.

5. The Novels

A book based on the movies was released in the 1970s, titled “Star Wars – From The Adventures Of Luke Skywalker”. One of the scenes featured in the book is the one where Luke and Ben Kenobi go to Mos Eisley to a tavern where they almost get into a fight with a weird alien. Ben is revealed to be Obi-Wan Kenobi and ends up cutting the guy’s arm with his lightsaber. In the novel however, the scene becomes much more violent, as Obi-Wan also sliced two other persons in half. Afterward, the bartender and his assistants drag the corpses away, as if this happens every day in their local.

6. The Chinese Comics

However, nothing beats the Star Wars comics from China. At the moment of their release, the movies could only be viewed in Hong Kong, and thus many Chinese had to find other ways to experience the franchise. As a result, these comics were born. There is nothing less accurate than this: Chewbacca looks like a chimpanzee and Darth Vader shines in the dark and rides a Triceratops dinosaur. More so, his plan is to attack Kennedy Space Center, because apparently ruling the galaxy is not enough. The Chinese comics surpass any bounds of imagination and can justly be crowned as kings of the top 6 curious moments from the Star Wars history.

Image Source: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6