The general story of what we now know and love as A New Hope, and by extension the entire Star Wars, varied heavily from draft to draft. The very first treatment written in 1973, The Journal of the Whills, Part 1, centered around a "Jedi-bendu" by the name of Mace Windy (not "Windu") and his apprentice, C. 2. "Chuiee" Thorpe. According to the existent plot, Windy worked as a warlord for an Alliance of Independent Systems, but was kicked out because his peers believed he was too powerful, after which he and Thorpe found themselves involved in a mysterious mission. Lucas brought the thing to his agent, Jeff Berg, who was quickly confused by the massive amounts of jargon used in the treatment, and recommended he start simpler.
The next version of the story was already called (The) Star Wars, and was heavily inspired by Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. The protagonists were the princess of the planet Ophuchi and her protector, veteran General Luke Skywalker, who were chased through the galaxy by the evil Empire. On their way, they were joined by two bureaucrats and later a cadre of juvenile rebels who had revolted against the empire, all of which later had to rescue the princess, sold to the Empire by Yavin aliens, from the imperial capital of Alderaan.
Lucas tweaked the story in the process of creating a rough draft in 1974, and then a first draft with some naming changes. The story featured Jedi master Kane Starkiller and his son Annikin, who helped free planets to oppose the evil Empire and its ruler Cos Dashit. As Kane was a cyborg (with only his head and right arm remaining organic) and therefore couldn't adequately teach his son the ways of the Jedi, he arranged for Annikin to train under the tutelage of his old friend Luke Skywalker, a general of the Aquilaean system, while Kane himself joined a hulking reptilian alien named Han Solo to perform a mission. The plot then had Annikin rescuing Princess Leia and joining a tribe of Wookiees (originally envisioned as smaller, with heads like that of "giant bushbabies", and not technologically capable), captained by Chewbacca, in order to defeat the Imperial forces in their jungle homeworld of Yavin. The Empire was interested in conquering Aquilae because it had advanced cloning facilities. The two bureaucrats from the film treatment had become two Imperial droids, Artwo and Threepio, who defected to the Aquileans more or less by accident. There were two antagonists who would later be amalgamated as Darth Vader: the Sith knight Prince Espaa Valorum, who was a man of honor and would ultimately make a Heel–Face Turn; and General Darth Vader, who was not a Force user.
The second draft from 1975, Adventures of the Starkiller as Taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars, had almost all the recognizable elements from the final product. In its backstory, the Galactic Empire had been built over a Republic toppled by trader barons, while the Jedi-bendu, who protected the galaxy with their knowledge of the Force of Others, had been exterminated by a mercenary Force sect named the Black Knights of the Sith. The protagonist was now Luke Starkiller, the third-youngest son of the Rebellion's ancient Jedi leader known only as "the Starkiller". Along with his younger twin brothers Biggs and Windy, Luke was taught the Jedi fighting arts (though not the Force, which he would learn later) by their uncle Owen Lars at their home on the desert planet Utapau, where they lived with Owen's wife Beru and daughter Leia. When Luke's older brother Deak was about to be captured by the Sith knight Lord Darth Vader, he sent the Kiber Crystal — a crystal which amplified the power of the Force in its bearer — to Luke via Artoo and Threepio, and entrusted Luke with the mission to bring the Crystal to their father on the planet Ogana Major. Luke bought passage to Ogana Major from young space pirate Han Solo and his crew, the Wookie Chewbacca (who was technologically capable) and the cyborg Montross Holdaack. After finding Ogana had been blown up by an Imperial unnamed space station, they were captured and taken to an Imperial prison complex in a floating city on the gas giant planet Alderaan. They escaped, rescued Deak, eventually reached the Rebel base on Yavin 4 where Luke was reunited with his father, and ultimately destroyed the space station in a way similar to the Death Star.
The third draft resembled the final A New Hope much more closely, but contained some differences in naming and character traits, including having Ben Kenobi revealed as a cyborg and being a bit of a curmudgeon. Leia's home planet was called Organa Major (with an R), and like Deak in the previous draft she was imprisoned on the Imperial planet of Alderaan rather than on the Death Star itself. The Kiber Crystal also remained a major part of the plot: while the others were rescuing Leia, Ben Kenobi went to take back a Kiber Crystal which had been stolen by Vader when he betrayed the Jedi (in the final film this was replaced by him deactivating a tractor beam holding the ship). Ben also survived the entire movie.
The fourth draft of the script was the one that was filmed, although some changes (such as changing Luke's surname to Skywalker) came at a very late stage.
Around the time of the second draft, Lucas was concerned that there weren't any major female characters, as Leia Lars was very minor, so he considered changing Luke to a girl (presumably fusing him with Leia) and making Han her love interest.
Darth Vader was originally a rather minor character, and early drafts actually have him spending most of the movie without his iconic suit, as the latter was actually not a permanent life-support system, but a spacesuit that he needed to board the Tantive IV through space. He was even going to be killed off during the trench run at the end, but Lucas decided to add a shot of him escaping as a Sequel Hook, and the rest is history.
In the second draft, Han and Chewbacca do not actually have a ship when they agree to fly Ben and Luke to Alderaan. They steal the Falcon just before the passengers arrive. Han's lines bragging about how great his ship is were actually meant to reflect that he was obviously scamming them.
In early versions of the script, R2-D2 could speak standard English, and he had a rather foul vocabulary. Although all of R2's English speech was removed, many of C-3PO's reactions to it were left in.
The scene where Luke and Han rescue Leia was originally going to end with Luke punching Leia in the face in order to knock her out.
Early designs
R2-D2 and C-3PO had different character designs in the beginning: the former was meant to be tripedal, and the latter bore an androgynous appearance similar to Hel from Metropolis. Artoo's design was changed after tripedal locomotion proved to be too difficult to accomplish on sand. Lucas also decided to make Threepio more distinctly male in the end.
Chewbacca originally had a bat-like face◊. This design was reused for the Lasat species, whose most notable appearance was in Star Wars Rebels.
Pacino: I remember not understanding the script. I was in The Godfather and they didn't care if I was right or wrong for the role or if I could act or not act.
Jodie Foster was the original candidate for the role of Princess Leia before Carrie Fisher was cast. However, Foster turned down the offer due to scheduling commitments to Taxi Driver. Sissy Spacek auditioned, while Fisher auditioned for Carrie, as Lucas and Brian De Palma were holding joint auditions and they got each other's roles (Fisher denied the rumor that she chose Star Wars because she refused to do nudity). Teri Garralso auditioned, and so did Anne-Marie Martin (best known as Wendy from Prom Night) andAmy Irving. Irving was allegedly a top choice, but had to pass on the part due to scheduling conflicts with Carrie.
Mel Blanc and Stan Freberg were considered for the voice of C-3PO before it was decided to let Anthony Daniels, who performed the role physically, to voice him as well.
The role of Obi-Wan Kenobi was originally written with Toshiro Mifune in mind. Depending on who you talk to, either 20th Century Fox wasn't keen on giving Mifune another whirl (although Mifune could speak English, all productions where he was speaking English ended up dubbing over his voice due to his thick Japanese accent) or Mifune wasn't available. Either way, the role went instead to Alec Guinness.
Mifune was also up for the role of Darth Vader at one point. At Tokyo Comic Con, his daughter Mika clarified that her father didn't want to do the film because he felt it was disrespectful to Japan's samurai culture, as this was back when many people still considered sci-fi to be a low-budget and juvenile B-grade genre. She went on to say that were he still alive today, he likely would have jumped at the chance to appear in a Star Wars movie.
Pat Roach auditioned for the role for Darth Vader.
In a strange role reversal, Peter Mayhew could have actually played Darth Vader, while David Prowse could have actually played Chewbacca! However, Lucas offered Prowse the choice between Chewbacca and Darth Vader, and Prowse choose to portray Vader as he wasn't interested in "spending three months in a gorilla suit", whilst Mayhew choose to portray Chewbacca because he wanted to play a hero.
Changes during filming
Even with the general script finished, there were aspects of the script that were tweaked during production. In the script used in the audition for Luke, Alderaan was called Organa IV, Han seems a lot more knowledgeable about the Empire, Kenobi is not present as Luke and Han react to Alderaan's apparent disappearance, and Luke admits that he does not have the money to pay Han.
Obi-Wan was originally going to survive the duel with Vader, but George Lucas changed this to a more thematically interesting Heroic Sacrifice when he considered that the character would have had little to do for the remainder of the movie. His death also fulfilled the need to give the villains more menace, as Lucas was worried that the Empire seemed very weak and was left with egg on its face as the heroes outwitted and escaped them; previous drafts did include some scenes of extreme violence and the (potential) rape of Leia by the Empire's men, but Lucas took this out because he did not want the film to do as bad as his then-rated PG (now R) THX 1138. Putting Obi-Wan's death in gave Vader and the Death Star more status and power, bringing the stakes back up.
The Battle of Yavin was originally going to be much less exciting — the final battle had Luke taking two full runs at the exhaust port, no appearance of the ghost of Obi-Wan, and Han scaring Vader away from Luke much before Luke takes the shot.
Lucas originally envisioned Tatooine as a jungle planet. Gary Kurtz traveled to the Philippines to scout locations; however, because the idea of spending months filming in the jungle made Lucas "itchy", the director refined his vision and made Tatooine a desert planet instead.
Luke was going to be surnamed "Starkiller" until fairly late in the process, when it was realized that the name uncomfortably reminded people of Charles Manson. The name "Luke Skywalker" was then brought back from the first draft script. However, the name Starkiller got far enough into production that, according to Mark Hamill, they had to reshoot Luke and Leia's first meeting in the detention level. (The name was eventually repurposed as the codename of Vader's secret apprentice in The Force Unleashed and then later as the name of the base housing the First Order's planet-sized superweapon in The Force Awakens.)
Changes in editing
The original opening crawl, written directly by George Lucas, would be rewritten by an uncredited Brian De Palma and Jay Cocks in the final film, who worked to tie the crawl's exposition much more closely into the film's opening scene.
It is a period of civil wars in the galaxy. A brave alliance of underground freedom fighters has challenged the tyranny and oppression of the awesome GALACTIC EMPIRE.
Striking from a fortress hidden among the billion stars of the galaxy, rebel spaceships have won their first victory in a battle with the powerful Imperial Starfleet. The EMPIRE fears that another defeat could bring a thousand more solar systems into the rebellion, and Imperial control over the galaxy would be lost forever.
To crush the rebellion once and for all, the EMPIRE is constructing a sinister new battle station. Powerful enough to destroy an entire planet, its completion spells certain doom for the champions of freedom.
According to Ben Burtt, Darth Vader's life support systems were supposed to make constant beeping and clicking sounds which, in addition to his loud, mechanical breathing, would make Vader sound like "a walking emergency room". This was deemed too irritating and the noises were cut down to just the iconic Vader Breath.
The "Lost Cut" — the first rough cut of the film, which has never been seen publicly and has been detailed in various articles over the years — was apparently intended to be "American Graffiti in Space". It featured many extra scenes, including extra footage of the Jawas and the Sandcrawler, a midget human confronting a creature much larger than himself (seen in a Between My Legs shot) at the Mos Eisley spaceport which was later reused for the "Life on Tatooine" segment of the The Star Wars Holiday Special , and more.
The incident in the cantina was originally filmed as much more gruesome, with Ponda Baba/Walrusman not only having his arm severed by Obi-Wan's lightsaber but also getting beheaded. Unused footage exists of the severed head moving around on the floor of the cantina.
Kabe, the little bat-faced alien seen briefly asking for a drink in the cantina, was originally supposed to be part of the group harassing Luke and can be seen standing near Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba in several shots. Several still photos exist of Kabe reacting to the aftermath of the altercation with Obi-Wan.
Luke and Leia's kiss almost got axed because test audiences laughed at it. Lucas' wife Marcia convinced him that they were laughing because it was so sweet and unexpected.
In the original filmed version, the Death Star was also not actually attacking Yavin IV. The idea of having the Death Star preparing to blow up the Rebel base was added in editing by Marcia Lucas through insert shots and recycled footage to give the scene more tension, which is why nobody on the base has dialogue in the control room. In addition, Luke was originally going to make two trench runs, failing to hit on the first one like Red Leader before succeeding on the second.
The meeting between the Imperial higher-ups at the Death Star had around ten seconds cut from the very beginning, in which Cassio Tagge explicitly referred to Darth Vader as a "Sith Lord, sent by the Emperor". Had these ten seconds not been cut, the Sith would've been properly referenced onscreen for the first time in 1977, rather than in 1999's The Phantom Menace. The dialogue remains intact in the 1977 Marvel comic.
Other
The Emperor's original concept was a Puppet King who got into his position thanks to Vader and Tarkin. This characterization was de-emphasized from the film's script, but the novelization retained it. It was in the later films that he was changed to a Dark Side mastermind.
Jabba was originally conceived of as a Small Name, Big Ego gangster who's nonetheless powerful enough to make Han's life difficult unless he's paid off. This interpretation was present as late as the filming stage, as illustrated by a deleted scene depicting a conversation between Jabba and Han Solo. Concept art and interview statements by George Lucas also detail a noticeably different design for Jabba than how he appeared when he debuted in Return of the Jedi. Instead of being a giant slug, he would be a Wookie-like creature realized by superimposing stop-motion footage on top of stand-in actor Declan Mulholland.
Darth Vader originally had no powers, and the Force was a general sixth sense and some basic mental tricks, as opposed to the final product where it's implied by Vader and Obi-Wan to be far more powerful than that (things like moving objects didn't appear until later entries).
According toMark, Lucas "really wanted" the classic cartoon short Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century to be shown before A New Hope during the original theatrical release, as a signal to the audience that what would follow wasn't supposed to be taken seriously. Unfortunately for Lucas, he was unable to secure the rights.
in the beginning: the former was meant to be tripedal, and the latter bore an androgynous appearance similar to Hel from Metropolis. Artoo's design was changed after tripedal locomotion proved to be too difficult to accomplish on sand. Lucas also decided to make Threepio more distinctly male in the end.
