Trivia: Mark Hamill annoyed Alec Guinness so much on set (asking career and acting advice) that Alec once paid him 20 pounds to go away.
Trivia: The film's screen tests were spoofed in a 1997 episode of "Saturday Night Live," which included Kevin Spacey playing Christopher Walken auditioning for the role of Han Solo. Walken really was considered for that role before Harrison Ford was chosen. Spacey also played Walter Matthau auditioning for Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jack Lemmon auditioning for Chewbacca.
Trivia: Billy Dee Williams, who later played Lando Calrissian in "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi," auditioned for the role of Han Solo.
Trivia: The sound that is made when they power up the Death Star's hyperlaser to destroy Alderaan is the same sound used in the THX Certifier on many DVDs.
Trivia: During the trash compactor scene, Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) held his breath so long that he broke a blood vessel in his face. That's why many of the shots show only one side of his face.
Trivia: When Obi-Wan Kenobi is deactivating the tractor beam, the set Alec Guinness was on was only six feet above the floor.
Trivia: Luke Skywalker's name was originally going to be Dirk Starkiller.
Trivia: In the Death Star scenes (yes, all of them), whenever the Imperials walk, you can hear their footsteps. But when Tarkin walks, you can't hear him. This is because Peter Cushing (Tarkin) found his Imperial boots so uncomfortable, he didn't wear them. He wore carpet slippers, so you can't hear him. The only shots in which he can be seen wearing boots are shots in which he remains stationary.
Trivia: According to the documentary "Empire of Dreams," as well as interviews on the "Revenge of the Sith" DVD, George Lucas originally wrote the "Star Wars" trilogy as one long serial titled The Tragedy of Darth Vader, which ran about 200 pages. He then broke it into three separate stories, and focused solely on the first part, which became "Star Wars."
Trivia: The heavy rifle used by Chewie in the Death Star is a German WW2 MG 34.
Trivia: Peter Mayhew worked as an orderly in a Yorkshire hospital before being cast in this film. He won his role ten seconds after meeting George Lucas for the first time; all Mayhew had to do was to stand up.
Trivia: When the film was first released in movie theatres in 1977, there was no 'Episode IV: A New Hope' on the opening crawl, because the producers said that people would be completely confused by it as there were no other 'Star Wars' films at the time. It was only after the film became a success that George Lucas was able to put the words back on.
Trivia: Darth Vader appears for a mere 12 minutes in the entire film.
Answer: While planning Star Wars, Lucas had a vague notion of doing a long series of movies inspired by old serials, then dropped that idea in favor of just one. When Star Wars became a phenomenon and sequels became feasible, Lucas revisited the idea. He thought of three trilogies along with some stand-alone "in-between" stories for a total of 12 films. By the time of The Empire Strikes Back's release, this was pared down to the 9 mainline films, going by interviews with Lucas and the cast at the time. By Return of the Jedi, Lucas had decided to end the saga there, with the option that he could revisit the first three at some later point. It's unclear if Lucas ever had any specific story ideas for the proposed sequel trilogy, and they never had any scripts. Producer Gary Kurtz suggested in an interview they would've been about Luke's twin sister (not Leia), though many fans are skeptical about just how much he would know about them. Of course since this question was asked a sequel trilogy was written and released.
TonyPH