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Harrison Ford held nothing back when it came to George Lucas' ropey dialogue.
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00:00The Star Wars franchise is such a colossal behemoth with so many moving parts that actors
00:05surely can't expect to have too much input on the creative side of things. Inspired by a recent
00:10Reddit thread on the subject, these Star Wars actors all decided to fix scenes they couldn't
00:14stand during shooting. Sometimes all it took was speaking to the director, while other times it
00:19required employing considerably great attack. With that in mind, I'm Adam from WhatCulture,
00:24and here are 10 ways Star Wars actors fixed scenes they hated.
00:2910. Mark Hamill wore the Vader mask because he hated the prop head, The Empire Strikes Back.
00:36In The Empire Strikes Back's iconic dark side cape scene, Luke Skywalker has a vision of
00:41being attacked by Darth Vader, but when Luke decapitates him with a lightsaber, he sees
00:45his own head staring back at him inside Vader's destroyed mask. It's a chilling, brilliantly
00:50executed scene, but one which wasn't quite coming together for Mark Hamill during shooting.
00:55Originally, a prosthetic of Luke's head was going to be placed within Vader's mask for
00:59the shot of Luke's face staring up, but Hamill was dissatisfied with the quality of
01:03the prop. And so, the scene was reshot with Hamill simply poking his head up from underneath
01:08the set stage and into the Vader mask, ensuring Luke's decapitated head looked considerably
01:13more realistic. Not being a prop and all. This scene proves yet again that the simplest solution
01:18is often the right one. No fancy effects needed, just a guy shoving his head through a hole in
01:24the set. On Twitter, however, Hamill added that shooting the scene this way did present
01:29an additional challenge, trying not to blink when smoke wafted across his face.
01:339. Tim Rose refused to have Admiral Ackbar celebrate the Empire's defeat, Return of the
01:39Jedi. Return of the Jedi, of course, ends with the destruction of the second Death Star, and
01:44all the rebels around the galaxy euphorically celebrating their victory over the Empire.
01:49But Tim Rose, the puppeteer who portrayed Admiral Ackbar on set, objected to a request
01:54from director Richard Marquand that he and the other Mon Calamari characters on board his
01:59ship dance around and celebrate following the victory. Rose strongly felt that Ackbar would
02:05react in a more solemn fashion to the Empire's defeat, and so refused to perform the scene as
02:10Marquand requested. In a 2019 interview, Rose said,
02:13I was at the stage where I came within 200 numbers of being drafted for Vietnam, so I had
02:18very strong views about the war at the time. While I think it's something to be proud of,
02:23but not something to celebrate, there's a big difference. So in Ackbar's last scene,
02:28they put the camera on him. I thought about our people who died, their people who died,
02:32and the weight of it sunk me down in the chair. And Marquand got really angry and said,
02:37Right, we're going to do this again, and this time you get up and dance around.
02:41I said, if you want Ackbar to dance around, you can put someone else in the suit.
02:45You've got my performance. And they left it in.
02:47Rose was absolutely right here. Seeing Ackbar slumped down in his chair is infinitely more
02:53suitable and impactful than watching him do a jig around his ship.
02:57Number 8
02:58Carrie Fisher spoke her least favourite line of dialogue in an English accent, A New Hope.
03:03Sometimes actors resort to desperate measures in an attempt to fix a scene they can't stand.
03:09And that was most certainly the case with Carrie Fisher when she filmed A New Hope's
03:13iconic holographic recording of Princess Leia. In a panel discussion shortly before her death,
03:18Fisher confirmed that she absolutely loathed one particular line from the sequence, when Leia says,
03:24I have placed information vital to the survival of the rebellion into the memory systems of this R2 unit.
03:30Fisher's frustration with the clunky, unnatural sounding dialogue prompted her to perform it in
03:35an English accent, because she felt that it wouldn't sound right coming from an American tongue.
03:40Now, did Fisher really fix the dialogue, given that fans routinely point out how jarring Leia's
03:45English accent is in the film's establishing scenes? Probably not. But she at least tried to
03:50do something to make it fit better, even if it ultimately didn't work out. Hilariously,
03:55Fisher also admitted that this single scene is what prompted her to embark on a second career
04:00as a Hollywood script doctor after the end of the original trilogy, working for many years
04:05polishing scripts of some of the biggest movies of the 1990s.
04:09Number 7. Mark Hamill had Luke wink at C-3PO, rather than ignore him, The Last Jedi.
04:16Mark Hamill had made it incredibly clear that he didn't fully agree with the creative direction
04:21for Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, yet nevertheless gave himself over to Rian Johnson's expectation
04:27subverting vision, for the most part anyway. Hamill did pipe up however, while shooting his
04:32reunion with Leia, R2-D2 and C-3PO, because as written, Luke didn't acknowledge C-3PO at all.
04:39Hamill felt strongly that Luke wouldn't ignore him, and so insisted to Johnson that he get a brief
04:45moment with the droid. In his own words, initially, I didn't acknowledge 3PO. I walked right past him.
04:51I said, Ryan, look, after all those years of service, even though we haven't been in contact in
04:55recent years, 3PO was the closest to a sidekick I had. Harrison had Chewie, and I had R2 and 3PO.
05:02But he's so accommodating and so collaborative. He said, oh, absolutely, you should go over there.
05:08We didn't really have time to script anything just to acknowledge him, and that's what I did.
05:13And so, the scene ended with Luke giving 3PO a quick wink before moving on. It's a small addition,
05:19but one that ensured fans didn't cry foul that Luke straight up blanked his old buddy.
05:246. Donnie Yen made Chirrut less of a stereotype, Rogue One
05:29Donnie Yen proved to be a scene-stealer in Rogue One with his performance as blind Jedi Chirrut Imwi.
05:35Yet he initially had some serious misgivings with the character as written, and insisted that he make
05:40some major changes to Chirrut's characterization. In an interview with GQ, Yen revealed that he told
05:45the filmmakers that Chirrut was written as a stereotype, a typical humorless martial arts
05:50master. Ultimately, he not only suggested that Chirrut be blind, but fought for him to get a sense of
05:55humor and even improvised jokes during shooting, such as the memorable line,
06:00Are you kidding me? I'm blind. Yen, an accomplished multi-hyphenate in his own right,
06:05insisted to director Gareth Edwards that he had far more to offer the film than merely acting,
06:10telling him, When you hire me, you're not just getting an actor, you're getting a choreographer,
06:15a director. And so, rather than simply grumble his way through an underwhelming part for the sake of
06:20a fat Disney paycheck, Yen spoke up and immeasurably improved the character, and interned the film in
06:26the process. Number 5. Oscar Isaac persuaded JJ Abrams to scrap Poe's death, The Force Awakens.
06:34Originally, when Oscar Isaac signed up to play Poe Dameron in The Force Awakens, it was written to
06:39be a relatively small role, because Poe would be killed off at the end of the first act when he
06:44and Finn crash-landed on Jakku while fleeing the First Order. As excited as Isaac was to appear in a
06:50Star Wars movie, he wasn't terribly thrilled about being killed off so soon, especially after recently
06:55shooting four separate movies where he died early on. And so, Isaac made his reservations clear to
07:01Abrams, who around a week later told Isaac that they found a way to give Poe a stay of execution,
07:07ensuring he stuck around for the rest of the movie and ultimately the trilogy. If Poe felt like the
07:12lesser of the sequel trilogy's three heroic leads, it's probably because he wasn't originally supposed
07:18to be one at all. Number 4. Samuel L. Jackson requested a purple lightsaber to stand out on
07:24Geonosis, Attack of the Clones. Samuel L. Jackson's time on the Star Wars prequels reached a fever pitch
07:30of frustration while shooting Attack of the Clones Battle of Geonosis, when Jackson realized that
07:36his character, Mace Windu, wouldn't stand out amid the chaos of the battle. And so, Jackson went directly
07:42to George Lucas and asked him if, to help him pop among the literally hundreds of characters in the
07:47scene, Windu could have a purple lightsaber. Though Lucas reminded him that Jedi lightsabers are
07:52typically only blue and green, Jackson retorted that he was playing the second baddest Jedi in the
07:58universe next to Yoda. Ultimately, that was that. But when Jackson was summoned back for reshoots,
08:03Lucas called him over and showed him footage of the battle where Windu was indeed rocking a purple
08:08lightsaber, much to his delight. Few actors would have had the confidence to make such a bold request
08:14of Lucas, let alone the clout, to actually persuade him. Bravo, Jackson. Number 3. Mark Hamill convinced
08:21George Lucas to scrap an awful line of dialogue, A New Hope. It's no secret that A New Hope in
08:27particular has its fair share of ropey dialogue, but in one scene it eventually became too much for Mark
08:33Hamill, who convinced George Lucas to scrap the offending verbiage entirely. Shortly after the
08:38destruction of Alderaan, Luke and Han Solo were meant to have an exchange on the Millennium Falcon,
08:42where Han mentions that he's going to drop Luke and company off at the nearest asteroid,
08:46and Luke replies with the following word salad. But we can't turn back, fear is their greatest
08:51defense. I doubt if the actual security there is is any greater than it was on Agwilae or Sullust,
08:57and what there is is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault. Hilariously, Hamill bluntly told
09:02Lucas what he thought of the dialogue. He said,
09:05Who talks like this, George? This is really not fair, because you know we're the ones who's going
09:09to get vegetables thrown at us, not you. And his appeal ultimately won out, as Lucas binned the
09:15cumbersome dialogue in favour of more plainly spoken chatter between the two. Praise be.
09:21Number 2. Harrison Ford changed I Love You to I Know, The Empire Strikes Back.
09:26Now for what's by far the most famous of all on-the-fly changes made by frustrated Star Wars actors.
09:32At the end of The Empire Strikes Back, when Han is about to be frozen in carbonite,
09:37Leia tells him, I love you. And Han was originally scripted to say, I love you too.
09:42But Harrison Ford felt that it wasn't consistent with Han's established character for him to say
09:46this to Leia, and so improvised a more on-brand retort, with Han instead telling her, I know.
09:52This more aloof, distant response was absolutely better suited to Han's character, and remains both
09:58one of the character's defining moments, and one of the most memorable beats in the entire Star Wars
10:03franchise. Though Ford did shoot a version of the scene as scripted for safety's sake, when both
10:08versions were tested in front of an audience, it was clear that his improvised revision was the one
10:13to go with. And like that, cinematic history was made.
10:17Number 1. Ray Park refused to blink as Darth Maul, The Phantom Menace.
10:22Sometimes actors just need to figure things out themselves when a scene isn't working for them.
10:27But in the case of Darth Maul actor Ray Park, it was pretty much the entire Phantom Menace shoot
10:32which caused him issues. The problem? The coloured red-yellow contact lenses he had to wear to
10:38portray the Sith Lord were extremely irritating, enough that they caused discomfort whenever he
10:43blinked. You know, the thing we do every couple of seconds. As a result, Park decided to blink as
10:48little as humanly possible while playing Maul. A flourish which was primarily for his own comfort
10:54on set, and yet ended up only enhancing the character's unnerving quality. As it turns out,
10:59Maul only blinks three times on screen during The Phantom Menace, which while underlining his
11:05overall creepiness, was largely Park trying to spare himself some ocular agony. For all of George
11:10Lucas's love of groundbreaking CGI in the prequels, could he really not spare Park the hassle and just
11:16colour his eyes in post? And there we have it folks, our list of Star Wars actors who fixed scenes
11:22they really hated. And please do let us know in the comments which scene you think they fixed for
11:27the better. While you're there, please do give us a like and hit that subscribe button. If you want
11:31to follow me on socials, I am at Strawn87 on Twitter and on Instagram. You can come and say hello to me
11:36on there. Thank you for watching everyone, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and until next time,
11:41may the force be with you.
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