An original script for the first Star Wars movie has been discovered collecting dust deep in the archives of the University of New Brunswick library in Saint John. 

Star Wars

Librarian Kristian Brown was tasked with sifting through the library's vast science fiction collection to digitize all of the zines, pulp magazines and novels. However, just as Brown was coming to the end of the job he discovered what appears to be an original shooting script for the 1977 classic.

"I was just looking actually for something else entirely and then I just found this unique looking item," Brown said.

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Bound in blue paper and bearing the official Lucasfilm Industries stamps, the script is dated March 17, 1975, well ahead of the film's theatrical release date. Lucasfilm Publicity said it looked to be a copy of the early script though could be a "fan-made" replica version once sold at conventions.

"No matter how many new things are made, it all basically came from this first thing. And it's just good to look back at the origins of the entire thing and not forget, you know, what came first," Brown said.

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Still, the script contains major differences to the eventual screenplay that made it to screen, including the protagonist's name: Luke Starkiller. The script is also characterized as "Saga I" and contains a scene in which Harrison Ford's Han Solo fires at an alien, killing it without warning - the movie made Solo look as if he was acting in self-defence. 

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