50 Star Wars secrets that will blow your mind
By Josh Hill
11. Return Of The Jedi Cast Almost Shot An Impromptu Horror Movie
When A New Hope was being filmed in Tunisia, a devastating sandstorm hit the production and ruined a ton of the sets. This ended up being a good omen for the film, as the extra time needed led to the creation of the effects we saw become revolutionary.
Return of the Jedi faced the same problem, as a sandstorm halted production in the desert where the Sarlacc scene was being shot. While sitting around being able to do nothing with Return of the Jedi, the cast and crew devised a horror movie called Blue Harvest, which they intended to shoot while they waited for the storms to pass.
Here’s what the movie would have looked like:
"“It would start with Carrie Fisher in her slave girl costume lying asleep in her trailer. We said ‘Why not put a ghost in it?’ George was going to write a five-page screenplay, I’d shoot it in a couple of days, and it would be ‘Horror Beyond Imagination.’ The story would have dune buggies coming over the hills invading the trailers, with nothing around them but graves and werewolves. We were seriously going to do it.”"
Blue Harvest was the working title of the film to thwart off paparazzi and lower the cost of shooting locations, but it has since become one of the most iconic parts of the Star Wars lore over the years.
Next: 10. David Fincher Worked On Return of the Jedi