Entertainment
The Most Hated Star Wars Planet Was Written To Be So Much Cooler
By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
Most Star Wars fans agree that Endor is the lamest planet (Yes, technically a moon, stop typing that comment!) in the entire galaxy far, far away. Visually, it’s no more exciting than any given forest, and to make matters worse, it’s crawling with annoying little Ewoks. However, what most Star Wars fans don’t realize is that Endor was written to be much, much cooler: in the earliest drafts of Return of the Jedi, it orbited the planet that would later become Coruscant.
Earlier drafts of Return of the Jedi were very different from the final movie: for example, the Empire had two different Death Stars that were in orbit around a humble moon. The script identified this as a “Green Moon,” one that went by the goofy name of Jus-Endor before it was changed to (ahem) just Endor. In the finished Return of the Jedi, there is nothing remarkable about the planet that this forest moon orbits; it’s a rather boring gas giant that never has any real impact on the canon.
Endor Oribited Had Abaddon
However, in the rough draft script for Return of the Jedi, the forest moon orbited a planet called Had Abaddon. Up to this point in Star Wars, all of the planets that we had seen were defined by singular themes: Tatooine was a desert planet, Hoth was an ice planet, and so on. What made Had Abbadon special was that it was a city planet whose entire surface was one big, sprawling metropolis.
This wasn’t just any city planet, though: it was the home of the Empire. That early Return of the Jedi script located the Imperial Palace on Had Abbadon, and this was where Emperor Palpatine sat in his throne room. Originally, Luke Skywalker was going to have to confront Palpatine on this planet; also, the throne room was surrounded by lava (no, really!), and Luke was going to have to duel Darth Vader in an environment so fiery it gave Mustafar a run for its money.
So, what happened to this cool concept? In later drafts of Return of the Jedi, Palpatine’s throne room was moved aboard the second Death Star. This made the presence of an Imperial city planet feel a bit superfluous to the plot, so Had Abbadon was written out of the movie altogether.
Timothy Zahn Invented Coruscant
However, later Star Wars creators really fell in love with the idea of the Empire ruling the galaxy from the comfort of a sprawling, city-covered planet. One of those creators was Timothy Zahn, whose groundbreaking novel Heir to the Empire introduced fan-favorite characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn and Mara Jade. In his books, he wrote about the Rebels establishing the seat of the New Republic in the Imperial Center of this planet; however, disliking the name Had Abbadon (it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue), he named this planet Coruscant.
This was during the height of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, so Zahn’s name stuck around: countless other writers included Coruscant (complete with its new name) in their books. Interestingly, the first time we ever saw this planet onscreen was during cutscenes for the seminal 1994 video game, TIE Fighter. Just like that, a revolutionary flight sim brought to life the planet that George Lucas came so close to showing us in 1983’s Return of the Jedi.
Coruscant Finally Appears On The Big Screen
Things came full circle in 1999, when George Lucas put Coruscant (once again imagined as a city planet) in The Phantom Menace. As for Had Abbadon, it was briefly revived in the Star Wars EU as a separate planet, one that served as a source of power for Darth Krayt in the popular Star Wars: Legacy comics. However, this comic was decanonized after Disney purchased Star Wars, and in the current canon, “Had Abaddon” is merely the name of a mysterious, unknown system in the Deep Core.
As for the Forest Moon of Endor, it remained pretty unexciting in almost all of the drafts of Return of the Jedi; after all, there’s only so much you can do to make teddy bears and redwood trees seem very interesting. Once upon a time, though, this moon happened to orbit the seat of power for an Empire that ruled the entire galaxy, one with a throne room filled with lava. Honestly, it doesn’t get much cooler (er, hotter?) than that, and anyone who says otherwise is a laser-brained nerf herder.
Entertainment
Super Bowl LX performers: Who is singing the anthems
The Super Bowl LX halftime show featuring Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl pre-show featuring Green Day may be taking up all the attention when it comes to Super Bowl performances — and rightfully so! Everyone is looking forward to what the internationally known artists will do or say regarding President Trump and ICE.
However, other musical artists are performing at this year’s Super Bowl as well.
Charlie Puth to sing national anthem
Kicking the show off with the U.S. national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” is the Grammy-nominated singer Charlie Puth. Puth’s debut single, “Marvin Gaye,” featuring Meghan Trainor, was a Billboard chart hit upon its 2015 release. Puth has since had other hits, including “We Don’t Talk Anymore (feat. Selena Gomez),” “Attention,” and “Nothing But Trouble.”
Mashable Top Stories
Brandi Carlile to perform patriotic song
Next up, singing “America the Beautiful” is singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile. Carlile has a whopping 11 Grammys and two Emmy awards. Her biggest hit was 2007’s “The Story,” but she is also known for songs like “Broken Horses” and “The Joke.”
Coco Jones to sing Black national anthem
Grammy Award-winning R&B artist Coco Jones will sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the Black national anthem. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” has become a Super Bowl staple since 2021, when Alicia Keys performed it at the event. Singer and actress Ledisi performed the song at last year’s game.
Entertainment
How A Star Wars Set Malfunction Caused A Cast Member To Meet Jesus
By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
Would you believe that arguably the most recognizable figure in the entire Star Wars franchise once ran into Jesus? This was no Jedi, although it’s admittedly fun to imagine what the Son of God might have had to say to someone else who could come back from the dead as a powerful ghost. No, the Star Wars character in question was R2-D2, and he had an accidental meeting with the divine when a remote control malfunction sent him to the set of Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth tv movie!
A long time ago (1977, to be precise), in a desert far, far away (Tunisia), two very different filmmakers were working on two very different projects. Franco Zeffirelli (best known for his Oscar-nominated Romeo and Juliet) was working on Jesus of Nazareth, which blended the four Gospels of the biblical New Testament into a single TV movie. Meanwhile, fresh off the success of American Graffiti, rebel filmmaker George Lucas was working on Star Wars, a movie that would effectively define his life while reshaping pop culture history as we know it.
Meeting The Maker
Aside from the involvement of James Earl Jones, these projects didn’t have much in common, and Lucas and Zeffirelli generally stayed out of each other’s way despite their sets neighboring one another. That all changed thanks to a scene requiring R2-D2 to be piloted using a remote control. While actor Kenny Baker was often inside the droid for scenes where R2 had to stay relatively still, there were some scenes in which George Lucas simply needed to move the little astromech from Point A to Point B.
In this case, Lucas intended for R2-D2 to exit a scene by rolling out from behind a sand dune. To do this, they intended to use a remote control, but the unit malfunctioned. Therefore, instead of stopping where the filmmakers intended, R2 just kept going until (as if guided by a higher power) he ended up on the set of Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth.
Fortunately, the runaway astromech didn’t cause any damage to the set of the Jesus TV movie, something that we can only assume would be some kind of sin. These days, the whole incident has become a bit of amusing trivia for Star Wars fans to share among themselves. At the time, though, R2 encountering a savior from heaven was just one more reason that filming this sci-fi blockbuster had become a living hell.
When Droids Move In Mysterious Ways
Reportedly, this is one of many incidents in which the droids weren’t doing exactly what the filmmakers needed them to do. On top of that, the droids were powered by exotic batteries that were hard to replace, and those batteries were soon drained in the hot Tunisian sun. Making matters worse, the truck storing R2-D2 and other droids once caught fire, damaging valuable props and costing George Lucas money he couldn’t really afford to spend.
Fortunately, it all worked out: after all these onset issues, Star Wars became one of the most successful films ever made. There are many reasons for this, including its perfect cast, killer effects, and charming story. However, we can’t discount the possibility that the movie’s success is a product of divine intervention; after all, his excursion to meet Jesus proves R2-D2 is a droid with friends in very high places!
Entertainment
Who is the Super Bowls Black national anthem singer Coco Jones?
“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the Black national anthem, has been sung at every Super Bowl since 2021, when Alicia Keys performed the song.
This year, at Super Bowl LX, Coco Jones will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
So, who is Coco Jones?
Mashable Top Stories
Coco Jones is a Grammy Award-winning R&B artist. In 2024, she was nominated for 5 Grammys and won one award for Best R&B Performance for her platinum-certified song “ICU.” She earned two more Grammy nominations in 2025 and was nominated for Best R&B Album at this year’s award show.
The artist’s father, Mike Jones, is a former pro football player. Jones was an NFL linebacker who played for the New England Patriots, St. Louis Rams, and Tennessee Titans.
If you’re not familiar with Coco Jones as an R&B artist, she might look familiar to you if you watched the Peacock series Bel-Air. Jones is the actor who played Hillary Banks on the drama that reimagined the Will Smith sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. As a child actor, she was also a well-known Disney Channel star, appearing in So Random!, Good Luck Charlie, and the Disney Channel Original Movie Let It Shine.
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