Your fun fact of the day: The Force Awakens was originally going to start completely differently. Although the Star Wars movie begins with a shot of an Imperial fleet preparing an attack on junkyard planet Jakku, JJ Abrams’ storyboard from a long long time ago features a very different beginning.

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Originally, the front crawl was planned to be followed by republic vessels towing a blasted out Imperial Star Destroyer into the gravitational pull of Jakku. And once it crashed on the surface, we would see Rey scavenge the ruined ship, a sequence that actually made it to the final film.

And don’t worry if you’re struggling to imagine this alternative opening: animator Tim Gray put together just what it would have looked like...

We don’t know exactly why this sequence was dropped, but in our mind, it starts the film with the wrong message. An image of a defeated destroyer suggests the Empire no longer poses a threat, that groups like the First Order could only exist on the very fringes of the galaxy.

The opening following a First Order attack makes for a more explosive start and also quickly establishes the galaxy’s new threat.

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Face it, the beginning we got is the one you were looking for.

Authors

Thomas LingDigital editor, BBC Science Focus

Thomas is Digital editor at BBC Science Focus. Writing about everything from cosmology to anthropology, he specialises in the latest psychology, health and neuroscience discoveries. Thomas has a Masters degree (distinction) in Magazine Journalism from the University of Sheffield and has written for Men’s Health, Vice and Radio Times. He has been shortlisted as the New Digital Talent of the Year at the national magazine Professional Publishers Association (PPA) awards. Also working in academia, Thomas has lectured on the topic of journalism to undergraduate and postgraduate students at The University of Sheffield.

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