Star Wars: 20 Things You Didn't Know About Return Of The Jedi
4. George Lucas Threw Out Months Of VFX Work He Didn't Like
One of the single most infamous days in the production of any Star Wars movie was Return of the Jedi's "Black Friday."
On November 22, 1982, barely six months before release, George Lucas decided that roughly 100 visual effects shots - totalling an estimated four months of work and mostly taken from the film's final battle sequence - weren't completed to his satisfaction and had them all thrown out.
The crew at Industrial Light & Magic were forced to start again from scratch, news which allegedly prompted many crew members to get extremely drunk.
The end result is certainly spectacular, but it's easy to appreciate the VFX crew's frustration at Lucas' apparent inability to communicate exactly what he wanted at the outset.