Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) – Leia (Carrie Fisher), Han Solo (Harrison Ford) |
Here are all the greatest lines in the “Star Wars” movies that weren’t in the script. Today is “Star Wars Day” (“May the Fourth Be With You) and we’re celebrating with a new list.
The “Star Wars” movies have some classic and quotable lines. Sometimes it’s because the screenwriter spent hours or days crafting the perfect line or moment. Other times it’s a last minute decision on the set.
This is a list of the greatest lines in the “Star Wars” live-action movies that weren’t in the screenplay.
9. “We’re all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?” – Han Solo
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) Han Solo (Harrison Ford) |
Movie: “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” (1977)
Actor: Harrison Ford
Han Solo and Luke Skywalker break into the detention block. They take down all the stormtroopers but an officer comes onto comm trying to find out what’s going on.
“Uh, everything is under control,” Solo says. “Situation normal.” After the officer demands answers, he says, “Uh, had a slight weapons malfunction. But, uh, everything’s perfectly all right now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?” Those lines weren’t in the original script.
It’s well-known that Harrison Ford hated George Lucas’ script. He told Lucas’ “I told him quite simply, ‘George, you can type this (expletive), but you sure can’t say it.” Ford felt the scene didn’t feel natural so he deliberately didn’t learn the lines.
He wanted it to sound spontaneous. It worked.
8. Luke’s Wink to C-3PO
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) |
Movie: “Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi” (2017)
Actors: Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels
As the Jedi master walks through the group he turns to C-3PO and gives him a surreptitious wink. But that wasn’t supposed to happen.
In the original script, Luke kisses Leia and walks out of the base past C-3PO without acknowledging the droid. But Hamill felt that was out of character.
Hamill later told Entertainment Tonight what happened. “Initially, I didn’t acknowledge Threepio, I walked right past him. I said, ‘Rian [Johnson], look it, after all those years of service, even though we haven’t been in contact in recent years, Threepio was the closest to a sidekick I had,'” Hamill noted. “Harrison had Chewie and I had Artoo and Threepio, but he’s so accommodating and so collaborative. He said, ‘Oh, absolutely, you should go over there.’ We didn’t really have time to script anything…just to acknowledge him, and that’s what I did.”
The wink also serves as a hint that there might be more to Luke’s appearance than meets the eye.
7. “Sure you can. You taught me how.” – Vice Admiral Holdo
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern), General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) |
Movie: “Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi” (2017)
Actors: Laura Dern, Carrie Fisher
Near the end of the movie Vice Admiral Holdo, played by Laura Dern, says goodbye to General Leia. They had lost many friends after the attack by The First Order. “So much loss,” Leia says wearily after losing dear friends. “I can’t take any more.”
“Sure you can,” Holdo says with a slight smile. “You taught me how.”
That line and most of the lines in that scene were created by Carrie Fisher and Laura Dern and weren’t in the original script.
“That whole Holdo scene, that goodbye scene was actually completely rewritten with Carrie and with Laura,” Johnson explained to The Daily Beast. “The three of us got together and worked through it. And the real heart of that scene came from Laura. It was her saying, ‘I just feel like, from my character to Leia, but also me to Carrie, I want to express what she means to me. I want to express my gratitude.’
After filming the movie Carrie Fisher tragically died and it gave the scene and the line a very powerful meaning.
He adds, “That’s one that may be the most powerful, oddly for me, especially now watching them. I’m just so happy we were able to get that.”
6. “Are you kidding me? I’m blind!” Chirrut Imwe
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2018) Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) |
Movie: “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (2018)
Actor: Donnie Yen
Chirrut Imwe, played by Donnie Yen, is a blind warrior. When the group is captured by a group of extremist Rebels they put bags over everyone’s head before hauling them away. That includes putting a bag on the one who can’t see. He screams, “Are you kidding me? I’m blind!” It’s a hilarious line but wasn’t in the screenplay.
“From the very beginning, I wanted my character to be funny,” Yen said. “A sense of humor. And Disney agreed to it. It was kind of consistent of my character. When they put the mask over me I felt ridiculous so I said ‘Are you kidding me? I’m blind!’. And then, ‘is that alright’? ‘Oh that’s a pretty cool line’. I said ‘can I just say it’? ‘Oh, I think so. Lemme just run it by Kathleen Kennedy.’ And she liked it and it became one of the best lines I guess.”
5. “And there’s a fresh one if you mouth off again.” – K-2SO
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2018) K-2SO (Alan Tudyk), Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) |
Alan Tudyk played the robot K-2SO in Rogue One. He’s an Imperial droid reprogrammed by Cassian. He’s incredibly useful but brutally honest.
In one scene he pretends that he’s an Imperial droid escorting Cassian and Jyn as prisoners. The trio is stopped by Stormtroopers. The scene was filmed with Tudyk on set wearing a motion capture suit and stilts. Diego Luna had the idea that K-2SO slaps him across the face. Tudyk agreed and improvised the line “Quiet! And there’s a fresh one if you mouth off again.” The slap didn’t catch Luna off guard. It did make him laugh though. You can see him covering his mouth to cover up his laughing.
Tudyk is known for comedic roles and brought a hilarious timing to the lines along with his motion capture on set.
“I played with it a lot,” Tudyk later told Vulture. “Usually about half of each line was written, and the other half I screwed around with, or some of the lines I got to make up. There were moments when I said, ‘Can I suggest something here? This is kinda dead. I’d rather say this.’ And they were very open to it. Even to the point where they would say, ‘What would K2 say here?’ I’d say, ‘How about this?’ And we’d find one.”
Tudyk said it’s his favorite line from the film.
4. “I can’t see a thing in this helmet” – Luke Skywalker
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford) |
Movie: “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” (1977)
Actors: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford
In one scene Han and Luke steal suits of stormtrooper armor. As Luke is walking out of the room he says “I can’t see a thing in this helmet”. Not only is the line not in the script the actors didn’t know it was on film.
While working on the scene Mark Hamill didn’t know the cameras were rolling and complained to Harrison Ford. When the filmmakers saw the take they decided to leave the line in the movie.
Fifty “stunt” stormtrooper helmets were created plus “six” hero helmets for close-ups. “You get panicky inside those helmets,” remembers Mark Hamill. “You can see the inside of the helmet and it’s all sickly green plus you’ve got wax in your ears, because of the explosions and you just feel eerie. I only once freaked out and said, ‘Get me outta here!’ It really was uncomfortable.”
3. “So who talks first?” – Poe Dameron
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) |
Movie: “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens” (2015)
Actors: Oscar Isaac
When the First Order raids a village they capture pilot Poe Dameron. He’s dragged to Kylo Ren and thrown to his feet. As he crouched to face him there’s a long silence as Ren glares at Dameron. Poe finally says, “So who talks first? You talk first? I talk first?”
The line is perfect and conveys Poe’s fearlessness and sense of humor, but it wasn’t in the script. Originally Poe was supposed to have a minor role in the film and was killed off in the first act. But then something unexpected happened.
J.J. Abrams, who co-wrote and directed the film changed his mind about killing off Poe. After talking to Isaac he realized Isaac didn’t want to take the role because he died so quickly. He’d played a few other roles where his character died soon after being introduced.
“I said that I wasn’t sure because I had already done that role in other movies where you kind of set it up for the main people and then you die spectacularly,” he told Esquire. “What’s funny is that [producer] Kathleen Kennedy was in the room and she was like, ‘Yeah, you did that for us in Bourne!'” In 2012’s “Bourne Legacy”, Isaac’s character is in a log cabin that soon gets blown up by a drone. He thought about the role and finally decided to do what was essentially a cameo. By then Abrams had changed his mind. He wrote back: “Never mind. I’ve figured it out. You’re in the whole movie now.”
““I was like, ‘Holy s**t! Alright, cool,’ ” Isaac said.
The script was already complete though. So this meant that most of the scenes and lines were added afterward. After scripting rewrites his role was expanded and many of his lines were improvised in reshoots including this line.
2. “I know” – Han Solo
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) Han Solo (Harrison Ford) |
Movie: “Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back” (1980)
Actors: Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher
In Return Of the Jedi Han Solo is about to be frozen in Carbonate in the Carbon Freeze chamber. Possibly to his death. Princess Leia, feeling she’ll never see him again blurts out “I love you”. It’s the first time she admits her feelings for him. Solo gives a wry smirk and says “I know.” But That’s not the way the scene was supposed to go.
In the handwritten notes by Lawrence Kasdan she says, “I love you. I couldn’t tell you before, but it’s true.” But even then he doesn’t say, “I love you”. His response is “Just remember that, ‘cause I’ll be back.”
When they were filming the scene, director Irvin Kershner shot the original line but it didn’t feel right. Ford made a suggestion to Kershner. “I think she ought to just say, ‘I love you,’ as I’m passing by her,” Ford said to Kershner before adding, “If she says, ‘I love you,’ and I say, ‘I know,’ it’s beautiful and it’s acceptable and it’s funny.”
Everyone loved the line. Almost everyone. Carrie Fisher was furious. She was furious over the cast and crew making the change without talking to her. She stopped speaking to Ford and, on that day, didn’t talk to him before or after the scene. Years later, Fisher agreed the line worked. She wasn’t the only one who didn’t like it though.
Executive producer George Lucas also hated the line and was afraid audiences would laugh and ruin the scene. So, he had two preview screenings cut. One with the scripted line and the other with “I know”. “At the first preview in San Francisco, the house broke up after Han Solo said ‘I know’,” Kasdan told Vanity Fair. “When the film was over, people came up and said that is the most wonderful line and it worked. So George decided not to have the second screening.”
Lawrence Kasdan is still unhappy with the line change telling Starlog Magazine in 1981. “Han and Leia’s scenes were among what I was proudest of in my script, but they hardly remained.”
1. “I Changed My Hair.” – General Leia
Movie: “Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi” (2017)
Actors: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher
In “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” Luke arrives to help save the last of the Resistance. They’re holed up in a bunker with the First Order trying to break in. Suddenly, Luke appears in the doorway and walks in. It’s a scene filled with emotion but it got even more intense.
After Like went into self-imposed exile Leia waited for her brother to return. Now finally the two siblings meet at their most desperate hour. But Like isn’t really there but a force projection. Luke appears to struggle what to say first and Leia breaks the tension. “I know what you’re going to say,” she says.”I’ve changed my hair.”
The line is perfect and fitting for both Leia and Carrie Fisher. Besides being a wonderfully timed joke it’s also a wink to the audience about her often parodied hairdo. It’s also a callback. Han Solo’s first words to her in “The Force Awakens” are “You changed your hair”. Of course Luke wouldn’t know that but the audience would.
In real life, for 30 years, Fisher quietly lived a successful career as a “script doctor” which is the term given to someone who helps complete screenplays with possible scripting problems.
“She loved one-liners and jokes,” Johnson laughs. “She could just pop out so many jokes. So the whole thing where she sits down with Luke and [says], ‘I changed my hair,’ obviously, that was her.”
The movies are continuing into the near future and it gives many more opportunities to wink, say “I love you” and wisecrack into the universe.
Which is your favorite improvised scene from Star Wars?
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