Almost Killed Off Before Their Time
Han Solo and Luke Skywalker were two of the most notable characters in the whole Star Wars film. If they were killed off earlier, things would have been way different. Gary Kurtz, one of the producers for The Return of the Jedi, confirmed that his original plan was an early storyline that would kill off Han Solo.
Aside from this, he also planned that Luke Skywalker would disappear into the wild, thus, cutting both Luke and Solo from the main storyline. Thankfully, Lucas declined this idea due to the fear that it might drastically affect the revenue of toy sales. Lucas did the right thing because even up to this day, merchandise for the two characters remains to be one of the most popular in terms of toy sales.