Found out something wild about The Empire Strikes Back ending

I was reading this making-of book I got from a thrift store in Portland and it said Lucas originally wanted the carbon freezing scene to end with Han dying for real. Like 1980, studio pushed back hard and made him change it. Crazy to think how different the whole trilogy would have been if Han just stayed dead. Anyone else find random facts like this that totally shift how you see a movie's ending?

2 comments

2 Comments

dakota_fox21d ago

Hard disagree on that one. Han coming back in Jedi made the whole rescue sequence hit way harder because you actually felt the stakes from Empire. If Lucas had his way, we would have lost the best character arc in the series for a cheap shock ending.

jennifer_west21d ago

Heard a podcast where Kenny Baker said Ford was actually happy Han was gonna die, @dakota_fox.