Harrison Ford Basically Bullied George Lucas Into Cutting Star Wars’ Most Awful Line

Summary:

• George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, is well aware that he isn’t the best when it comes to writing dialogues.
• Decades ago, the line he wrote for Mark Hamill was so terrible the actor was begging him to have it removed.
• Harrison Ford reportedly even threatened to tie Lucas up and force him to read the line until he came to his senses.
• Fortunately, none of that was required as the director agreed to change the notorious line.

We all love and cherish George Lucas for creating one of the greatest sci-fi franchises in history. The universe of Star Wars is vast and captivating, and one can’t help but be impressed by Lucas’ imagination and creativity in developing it so well… But everyone has their weakness, and for George Lucas, it has always been writing.

Decades ago, Lucas wrote perhaps his worst line of dialogue. It was so utterly terrible that both Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill teamed up against the director to make him change or remove it.

Worst Star Wars Line Shocked Its Actors

George Lucas hates writing dialogue. The director’s approach to it is strictly utilitarian, and he tried to squeeze as much plot-relevant information into it as possible. At times, it creates horrendous lines that don’t feel like they could come out of any living being’s mouth under any circumstances. This one was one of them.

“Boy, I’ll never forget it as long as I live. I sometimes dream about this line. <...> My line was, ‘But we can’t turn back: fear is their greatest defense. I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust, and what there is, is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault,’” Mark Hamill recalled.

Hamill and Ford Were Not Taking That

Both the actors were frustrated with this line. According to Hamill, he literally begged George Lucas to take it out of the screenplay — and Harrison Ford threatened to tie the director up and force him to read it until he removed it. As far as we’re aware, it didn’t come to that: Lucas listened to his stars and altered the problematic line.

But it’s hilarious to think that at one point, the creator of Star Wars wrote this utter mess of words down, looked at it, and thought to himself, “Yes, this is exactly how humans communicate, especially under stressful circumstances.” The very fact that it took active protesting from the two lead actors to have this line removed is bizarre.

Source: Mark Hamill via YouTube