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A long time ago (January 1975, to be exact) a fledgling screenwriter named George Lucas was working on the second draft of an epic sci-fi space opera he called “Adventures of the Starkiller, Episode One: The Star Wars.”

Of the many, many problems (and one of little-known Star Wars facts) with this clunky script that would eventually become Star Wars: A New Hope, one that seemed easily fixed to Lucas was the serious lack of female characters. So, Lucas did something radical: rewrote his story’s main character, Luke Starkiller, as an 18-year-old girl. At least one concept drawing by artist Ralph McQuarrie exists of this short-lived gender swap, but a few months later, with Lucas’ next draft, Starkiller was a boy again. Star Wars wouldn’t get a female lead until nearly forty years later. If you’re a Star Wars fan and a Disney fan, you have to check out these Disney attractions.

2. Yoda was almost a monkey in a mask
Next time you complain about the goofy CG Yoda from the prequels, consider one of these Star Wars facts: the spiritual center of the Jedi order was almost a real-life monkey in a green mask carrying a cane.

Luckily, there was a monkey expert on set to throw a banana peel in this plan’s tracks. One of the crew who worked with apes in 2001: A Space Odyssey quickly pointed out, “Look, the monkey’s just going to pull off the mask over and over again. It’s never going to work.” The team soon enlisted Muppet master-crafter Jim Henson, who suggested casting Frank Oz (formerly the voice of Miss Piggy) to bring Yoda to life. Love Yoda’s quotes? These are our favorite Star Wars quotes of all time.

3. Han Solo died in the original script
The original ending of Return of The Jedi has Luke assuming Darth Vader’s role as evil Galactic enforcer, and Han Solo dying in his heroic raid on the Death Star. Harrison Ford probably would have been fine with this. Ford was famously snippy about Lucas’ script (“George, you can type this ****, but you can’t say it.”) and in a 2010 interview he waved off his iconic character as “Ham Yoyo,” stating he was officially “done with him.” Time makes fools of us all.

4. The Emperor was married to King Kong
Well, in a manner of speaking. When Emperor Palpatine first appears as a hologram in The Empire Strikes Back, the person under the black mantle and facial prosthetics is not Ian McDiarmid, who played Palpatine on screen in Return of The Jedi. It’s not a man at all: the first Emperor we see is actually Elaine Baker, then-wife of Star Wars makeup designer Rick Baker. As Gizmodo points out, Rick Baker once donned the monkey suit in the 1976 King Kong remake, so we can technically say that Emperor Palpatine and King Kong were legally wed. (Just try not to imagine their children.) Celebrate your Star Wars love with these hilarious corny Star Wars jokes.

5. The opening text crawl took 3 hours to shoot
The famous floating text that opens A New Hope may have been one of the greatest special effects achievements in the film. As Mental Floss points out, the text was filmed practically “by carefully placing 2-foot-wide die cut yellow letters over a 6-foot-long black paper background with a camera making a slow pass over them to mimic the crawl.” What’s now a default option on filmmaking software took LucasArts three hours to capture.

6. The trash in the Death Star garbage compactor scene was REAL
Apparently, the smell was so bad that Mark Hamill burst a blood vessel from trying to hold his breath, and the camera angle had to be adjusted for the rest of the scene so as not to show his injury. As for Peter Mayhew’s yak-hair Chewbacca suit? It reeked for the rest of production.