Top ten things you didn't know about Star Wars

TORONTO - May “the fourth” be with you today, as Star Wars nerds everywhere celebrate Star Wars Day.

The unofficial holiday was trending worldwide on Twitter on Friday and what better way to celebrate your inner Stormtrooper or Jedi than with Globalnews.ca’s list of top ten Star Wars facts.

1. 250 million: Number of Star Wars toy figures that were sold between 1978 and 1986, making it the most successful movie-related toy line ever created.

2. A scuba regulator was used to simulate Darth Vader’s laboured breathing.

3. Most of the Stormtroopers are left-handed because of how the weapons were constructed. The props were constructed to seem like real weapons, with the magazine on the left side. The design caused right-handed troopers to bump the weapons into their chests.

4. Yoda’s voice was done by Frank Oz, who is also the voice of Miss Piggy.

5. 60 per cent of the movie was shot with a film that was so prone to fading that it was discontinued in the early 1980’s.

6. Carrie Fisher’s breasts had to be taped down in her Princess Leia costume, because it was not designed to wear anything underneath. She was once quoted as saying, “As we all know, there is no underwear in space.”

7. Sound effects were created quite resourcefully on the set of the film. Walnut shells were used as the bone crushing sound of when Darth Vader crushes Captain Antilles’ neck. The lightsaber sound effect is really an idling 35mm movie projector, combined with feedback from a microphone cable passing by a television.

8. Despite his infamous “Luke, I am your father” line, Darth Vader only has 12 minutes of collective screen time in the first film. Oddly enough, “Vader”, pronounced differently, is the Netherland’s Dutch word for “father”.

9. The infamous bad guy, Darth Vader, was played by both David Prowse and James Earl Jones in the original film; Prowse was the man in the suit and Jones was dubbed-in as his voice. However, the actors have never actually met in person.

10. George Lucas once planned for Luke Skywalker, his aunt and uncle, to be dwarves.

All facts from the Internet Movie Database.