Fabulous Facts from the World of Entertainment

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In his original Star Wars film, George Lucas was going to name the planet “Alderaan” not “Alderaan”, but in fact “Alderman”, after his great-great-great-grandfather, Chelmsford Lucas, who was the First Alderman of Nantucket. However, Mark Hamill, who played central character Luke Skywalker, struggled with the pronunciation of the word “Alderman” early on in the film’s shoot and subsequent references to the word ended up on the cutting room floor.



The problem was so pronounced that Lucas decided that the planet would have to be destroyed.
 

A purpose-built Death Star was introduced into the script in order to obliterate the planet, sending the movie sky-rocketing over budget and postponing the shoot by four months.

The delay led Lucas to the conclusion that any sequel containing a similar Death Star could only be financially viable if the massive weapon were only half built. Luckily, the success of Star Wars at the box office covered all the losses for the first movie. Co-star Harrison Ford later publicly humiliated Hamill about his inability to say the word alderman and as a consequence ruined his career.

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