20 pieces of trivia you need to know about Star Wars
Carrie Fisher wrote the “I changed my hair” line in The Last Jedi
Star Wars is full of improvised moments, both in canon and behind the scenes. In fact, most of the Resistance’s efforts to defeat the Empire seem to be off the cuff.
But since the best laid plans of porgs and men often go awry, we can hardly blame them for that. Fortunately, they almost always work.
The same can be said for the moments ad-libbed by the cast. Han Solo’s entire iconic exchange on the intercom with the stormtroopers in A New Hope was somewhat improvised on the spot by Harrison Ford, because he wanted it to appear as spontaneous as possible. This makes us believe that Harrison Ford might actually be Han Solo, a man who would legally change his middle name to spontaneous if he thought it’d make him sound cool.
Carrie Fisher, renowned writer, script doctor and General, ad-libbed the line “I changed my hair” during Leia and Luke’s bittersweet last meeting in The Last Jedi. Benicio del Toro improvised DJ’s final line “Maybe,” while Rogue One’s Diego Luna, who plays Cassian Andor, and Alan Tudyk improvised K2-SO’s slap across his face on Jedha, leading to the “…and there’s a fresh one…” line afterwards.
But contrary to popular belief, one line that wasn’t exactly ad-libbed was Han Solo’s famous (and impossibly, chest-clutchingly romantic) line “I know” from Empire Strikes Back. It’s true that it wasn’t in the script, but Harrison Ford discussed the line change with director Irvin Kershner before filming.
Ford wasn’t sure he’d be returning as Solo for what was then the final movie, so he wanted to change the original response to Leia’s “I love you” from “Just remember that Leia, because I’ll be back.”
Ford famously asked Lucas to kill him off, because he believed Han had played his part, and he hadn’t signed a three-movie contract. Lucas convinced him however, and Han lived to be a hero another day.
Next: 20 of our favorite moments in Star Wars
What happened to our favorite nerf-herder in later life, however, we can’t talk about. It’s still too raw.