One of the Most Iconic Star Wars Lines Was Totally Ad-Libbed
Going into its sixth decade strong, the Star Wars franchise has included some legendary lines.
"May the Force be with you." "I have the high ground." "I am a Jedi, like my father before me." And of course, "No, Luke. I am your father."
And one of the most iconic Star Wars lines was improvised on the spot by Harrison Ford, who's starred as Han Solo in four of the franchise's films.
Near the end of Episode V – "The Empire Strikes Back" – Princess Leia blurts out "I love you" as Darth Vader prepares to send Solo into his carbonite prison to be shipped off to Jabba the Hut. Han chirps back with a diabolically cool "I know" before he's turned into a statuesque slate of stone.
And just like that, Han Solo became one of the coolest movie characters in history.
Since then, it's been parroted by every Star Wars-obsessed couple and plastered on t-shirts, mugs, and all other memorabilia. After all, following two movies of will-they/won't-they, anything other response would be way off-base from the smuggler-turned-hero. He knows he'll find a way out of his capture, and he's way too cocky to say something like, "I love you, too."
But as it turns out, that's exactly what Ford was supposed to say.
Episode V, like a lot of creator George Lucas' work, went through a lot of trouble and rewrites before the final script was shot. It was originally written by Leigh Brackett, who wrote the entire screenplay before she died of cancer before filming. Lucas kept her name on the credits but changed much of what she'd written. He'd hired Lawrence Kasdan to help finish.
In Brackett's original script, the interaction was a bit wordier. Leia would have said, "I love you. I couldn't tell you before, but it's true," to which Solo replies, "Just remember that, 'cause I'll be back." Still the cocky scoundrel viewers adore, but not quite right.
In rewrites, Lucas argued that it should be simpler and less wordy. While that was probably true, he pushed for the tepid (and uncharacteristic) "I love you, too." Ford explained in a 2011 interview that that would have been a "lost opportunity."
"This character has never behaved so unabashedly emotional and conventional before," Ford said. "You want your badasses to be a badass until the end. You want them to go down the way they lived."
Irvin Kershner, who directed the film, is famous for workshopping scenes on set. Han and Leia's farewell scene was no different, and a conversation between Kershner and Ford was recorded by publicist Alan Arnold. It was later put into J.W. Rinzler's book about the film, "The Making of the Empire Strikes Back."
The recorded conversation proved that Ford was, in fact, responsible for the iconic line.
"If she says, 'I love you,' and I say, 'I know,' it's beautiful and it's acceptable and it's funny," Ford was recorded saying to Kershner. "The point is, I'm not worried about myself anymore. I'm worried about her."
While Kershner was happy to make the change and believed it fit into his film, Lucas was not happy. He thought the line would get a bad laugh from the audiences. So to make sure they had the right line, they tested both at an early screening.
Ford, Kershner, and Lucas were all present at the screening. Ford recalls that there was one laugh, but called it a "laugh of recognition." People told the trio that it was a perfect line, that it worked so well. Lucas then realized the decision was made.
And with that decision, another iconic line was born.