15 Crazy Facts You Have To Accept To Enjoy Star Wars Movies
14. Empire Strikes Back Was Always Episode V
Following on from the original Star Wars' contained story-telling, its first sequel wasted no time in turning heads with its subtitling of "Episode V." Not only was this the first time that Star Wars had been associated with "Episodes", but also made people question their own counting abilities, especially since the film had only been referred to as "Empire Strikes Back" on all of its promotional materials.
After the first Star Wars became a smash hit at the box office, George Lucas began work on its sequel, starting from scratch after deciding that the sequel novel - Splinter of the Mind's Eye - by Alan Dean Foster was too small in scale for his vision and newly awarded budget. The drafting process gave birth to the episode motif with Empire Strikes Back initially being referred to as "episode II" before evolving into "episode V."
So what led to this development? A lot of ideas. So many ideas, in fact, that even before it was released, George Lucas had already planned the Skywalker saga as a trilogy of trilogies, destining the prequels and the sequels from the "golden" era of Star Wars.
The numbering and release order continues to be hazardous territory for those uninitiated in the franchise's strange ways, and even some fans would be forgiven to think that the episode numbering was introduced with the prequels.