A Hotel Served As The Set For Hoth In The Empire Strikes Back

The Hoth scene in "Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back" can chill your bones just by thinking about it. The sixth planet in the Hoth system was home to the Rebellion's Echo Base, and very little can live there besides Tauntauns (who StarWars.com describes as snow lizards) and Wampas. Even a Tauntaun can't stay out past dark on Hoth, and as you know, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) was kept alive by being tucked snugly into a dead Tauntaun's guts, which don't smell very nice. 

As it turns out, shooting the scene was pretty difficult as well. The original location for the Tauntaun scene where Han Solo (Harrison Ford) rescues Luke couldn't be reached because of an epic snowstorm, according to a 2020 interview Hamill did with StarWars.com. The scene was shot in Finse, Norway, and the conditions were less than ideal. The site explains that blizzards "shut down the train lines and essentially stranded the crew at their hotel." It was the worst storm Finse had seen in years. Hamill explained in the interview what it was like to shoot that scene and spoke about people watching from where they did end up filming.

Hamill said the original location for the scene was 90 minutes away on a blue-ice glacier, but they ended up shooting 30 feet from the hotel they were all staying in because of the weather. He said:

"I was very excited to see [the glacier location], and then, as happens in filmmaking, it was one of the worst snowstorms in I don't know how many years. We wound up filming right outside the lodge. I mean, if you turned the camera around you saw people on their balconies having their hot chocolate as Harrison [Ford] and I were acting next to a dead Tauntaun."

Those people have probably been dining out on those stories since 1979. The costumes for the Hoth scenes might have looked warm, but that was largely for show. Hamill mentioned how "bundled up" the crew was in goggles and face coverings. "I would stay bundled up right until we had to shoot, then the protective gear would come off and obviously the wardrobe is designed to look good but not actually be practical in terms of keeping you warm in those conditions."

The shoot began in Finse in March, where the average temperature is approximately 26 degrees Fahrenheit with an average low of roughly 15 degrees. When you're shooting outside for a long time, that isn't going to be comfortable. Harrison Ford was also stranded at one point in the snow. 

Adding to the cold was the fact that they had to make Luke look like he'd been out in a storm for quite a while. Hamill explained:

"I remember I was supposed to be sort of groggy and semi-conscious when Obi-Wan [Alec Guinness] comes to me in the vision. And they'd say, 'Get a little more snow on his face!' and Graham Freeborn [the chief makeup artist] would scoop up snow and pack it so it would be in my eyelashes and eyebrows. You'd go as long as you could and then you'd try to get in a tent and get warm until they needed you again. Certainly a challenging environment."

He mentioned that shooting the Tatooine scenes in Tunisia in North Africa was easier because "you can handle that better than bitter cold." Of course, despite the difficult shoot, that is one of the first scenes you probably think of when you think of "Empire Strikes Back." Well, that, the big reveal scene, and the carbonite scene. Cold or not, it still looks amazing over four decades later. 

"Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back," and the rest of the "Star Wars" films are currently streaming on Disney+.