The Making of Star Wars (Enhanced Edition)

by J.W. Rinzler

“George kind of swapped names around,” Ralph McQuarrie says. “He told me, ‘I just don’t want to think up new ones.’ ” The notes for the many drafts contain dozens of lists of names, but here’s what Lucas says about his final choices: Han Solo: “It could have been from some Solo [paper] cups.” Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi: “I picked Ben because it was a very easy name; Kenobi was a combination of a lot of words that I put together. The name came out of thin air.” Leia Organa: “I just picked that name. But there was a planet Organa Major in the film for a long time. And she ended up with the name of the planet because she was originally from there, though afterward her planet’s name was changed to Alderaan.” Darth Vader: “That’s just another one of those things that came out of thin air. It sort of appeared in my head one day. I had lots of Darth this and Darth that, and Dark Lord of the Sith. The early name was actually Dark Water. Then I added lots of last names, Vaders and Wilsons and Smiths, and I just came up with the combination of Darth and Vader.” Chewbacca: “I came up with a whole bunch of Wookiee words, just changing words around, and I liked Chewbacca the best.” (The word Wookiee came from THX 1138, when actor Terry McGovern was doing wild track voice-overs and said, “I think I just ran over a Wookiee.”) R2-D2: “We were working late one night on THX 1138, and we were looking for ‘Reel 2, Dialogue 2,’ and so somebody yelled out get ‘R2D2’—and Walter Murch, who was mixing t...