Fox Financially Cut Off George Lucas Before He Could Film Star Wars' Opening Scene

The original "Star Wars" has one of the most unforgettable opening scenes in movie history, as the 20th Century Fox fanfare and opening crawl give way to the sight of a massive Imperial Star Destroyer, gliding in at the top of the frame in pursuit of a Rebel blockade runner. The two spaceships shoot each other with lasers, and from there, it cuts to droid and fleet trooper activity on the Rebel ship. It's not long before a boarding party of Stormtroopers takes the ship, with Darth Vader himself bringing up the rear. He soon comes face to face with Princess Leia, and the rest is history.

The prequel "Rogue One" went to great lengths to recreate the moments leading up to the opening scene of "Star Wars," but while fans may view it as sacrosanct now, that wasn't always the case with Fox. Like many movies, "Star Wars" (now distinguished from other franchise installments by the retronym "A New Hope") was shot out of order. Writer-director George Lucas hadn't even filmed the opening scene before the studio was ready to pull the plug. In 2020, Lucas told StarWars.com:

"The studio on 'A New Hope,' they just cut us off. There was a lot of stuff that we didn't do that I wanted to do. But we just didn't get to finish the film ... We were going a week over or two weeks over and they said, 'Well, we're just going to cut you off.' ... I said, 'Well, I haven't shot the beginning of the movie.' You know, where Darth Vader comes in and there's that battle and Princess Leia has a conversation with him. None of that had been shot. And they said, 'Well, we don't care. Try to make the movie without it.'" 

It's hard to imagine what shape "Star Wars" might have taken without that opening scene. From a storytelling standpoint, the scene serves several practical functions, including the introduction of important (now, famous) characters like Vader, Leia, C-3PO, and R2-D2.

The scene furthermore gives the movie an action beat to help immediately engage audiences. It also lays the groundwork for Leia's holographic message to Obi-Wan Kenobi, which, in turn, gets him and Luke Skywalker involved in the whole rescue mission for her aboard the Death Star. Seeing what she went through to smuggle that distress call out through R2-D2 gives their mission stakes it might not otherwise have.

It feels like if you pulled out that opening scene, the entire thread of "Star Wars" would start to unravel, and what's left would be a movie that begins with C-3PO and R2-D2 meandering around the desert, having already exited their escape pod on the planet Tatooine.

Of course, those are creative issues, and the bean counters at the studio weren't concerned with the domino effect that pulling out the opening scene might have. All they cared about was having Lucas bring in "Star Wars" on schedule. Lucas had trouble getting the film financed in the first place, and it was only by the grace of Alan Ladd, then president of Fox, that he was able to get it done.

Fortunately, Lucas and his crew believed in the project so much that they were willing to work extra hours to complete as much of it as they could before the studio's deadline. Though "Star Wars" may operate like a well-oiled droid, its production required a great bit of ingenuity to get it over the finish line, and we're lucky that it made it across intact.