7 Famous Movie Scenes That Only Existed To Save Money

Star Wars is probably the last film franchise you'd expect to be bound by budgetary limitations, but during the New Hope era, George Lucas didn't own a money bin to rival Scrooge McDuck's.

When the Death Star blows Princess Leia's home world of Alderaan to smithereens, it establishes the Galactic Empires as space's answer to the Nazis and sets the movie's stakes, but the planet initially had a bigger role to play.

The original script had entire scenes set on Alderaan, including one where Luke and Han travel there to bust the princess at of a Sith Prison, but when A New Hope's budget was set, Lucas had to surgically remove it from the story.

Blowing it eight ways from Sunday was one way of achieving that without having to go through the screenplay and delete every solitary reference to the planet.

Perhaps there'll be another special edition somewhere down the line where Lucas reinstates Alderaan using layers upon layers of digital effects.