Vader’s character was so difficult to portray that four different people were cast for the job. The on-screen body was a bodybuilder called David Prowse, and his stunt double was fencer Bob Anderson. His voice was James Earl Jones and at the end of “Return of the Jedi,” the face we see is Sebastian Shaw.

The sets of the movie where at Elstree Studios, where Kubrick was shooting The Shining at the same time. A fire in 1979 burned down an entire soundstage making Kubrick take over some of Empire’s studio space. Stanley being the perfectionist that he is, waited until the perfect results were produced, causing significant delays in the production of The Empire Strikes Back.