Empire Strikes Back Originally Screened Two Different Endings In Theaters, Changed Depending On When Star Wars Fans Saw It
After the initial screenings on May 21, George Lucas saw the movie with audiences and decided the end of the movie was unclear.
The Empire Strikes Back was originally released in theaters on May 21, 1980. But the ending that audiences who went to see it on that night got, is not the same ending audiences who showed up to see it a few weeks later viewed.
In a revelation on StarWars.com it’s revealed that George Lucas actually changed the ending of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back while it was still in theaters. After the initial screenings on May 21, George Lucas saw the movie with audiences and decided the end of the movie was unclear.
He wanted audiences to have a better understanding of where exactly the main characters were, geographically, within the Rebel Fleet. So he called ILM general manager Tom Smith.
When Tom Smith picked up the phone this is what he says he heard from Lucas, “I don’t wanna tell you this. We need some more shots for Empire.” Smith immediately thought Lucas was joking, since the movie was already in theaters.
But Lucas responded, “No, no, no… it’s not in all the theaters.” Indeed while the movie opened on May 21st, it wouldn’t go into full wide release until later.
So ILM went to work creating new special effects shots. The shots they created let us look in the window of the Millennium Falcon docked with a Rebel Medical Frigate, to see hints of Lando there.
And then another shot lets us see Luke, Leia, and the droids inside the Medical Frigate while they talk to Lando.
Those shots simply were not there, in the original version of the Star Wars sequel
In an era without CGI, it was an incredibly complicated shot for ILM to pull off in a very short amount of time. Here’s the finished product in the Empire Strikes Back ending you’re probably most familiar with…
It only took ILM three weeks to cobble together the shots Lucas wanted and those were immediately rolled out to movie theaters. Audiences got a slightly different ending than the one they’d been getting for the three weeks prior and no one was the wiser unless they saw it twice.
