Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Never-Before-Seen Footage and Outtakes Released

In the 40 years since it hit theaters, Star Wars fans have long assumed that they had seen every piece of behind-the-scenes footage from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, only for Good Morning America to surprise fans by sharing a nearly seven-minute reel of bloopers, outtakes, and never-before-seen footage. Especially in an age of home video and comprehensive supplemental materials, fans have previously seen footage that chronicled how the iconic film came to life, with this new reel of footage feeling like we’ve been personally transported to the set of the iconic film. You can check out the new footage below.

Part of what makes the new footage all the more heartwarming is that it features stars Carrie Fisher and Peter Mayhew, in addition to director Irvin Kershner, who have all since passed away.

In the video, star Mark Hamill discusses the ambitious ending of the film which revealed that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father, resulting in one of the biggest cliffhangers in cinematic history. Despite the internet’s tendency to spoil things, series creator George Lucas previously explained how he thinks fans would have honored the unexpected nature of the finale and audiences would have avoided revealing all of the details about the adventure if the internet was around back in 1980.

“I think it might have!” Lucas shared with StarWars.com about if the ending would have been kept a secret. “Because the thing about it is I didn’t tell anybody — anybody — about it. And it wasn’t in any of the scripts. It wasn’t even in the story treatments. I kept that aspect of it secret and I was the only one that knew about it. And it really wasn’t until the day we shot that we told Mark so he could react appropriately.”

Lucas went on to note, “I think, in this era now with the internet the way it is, it’s very hard to have surprises in a movie. And I don’t think you could do it today.”

Stay tuned for details on the future of the Star Wars saga.

Were you excited to see the footage? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!