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There is a persistent notion among Star Wars fans and the general public that the success of Star Wars was in spite of George Lucas, particularly when it comes to the dialogue of the film. To a great extent, this comes from the negative reaction to the prequel trilogy released between 1999 and 2005, which is known for particularly wooden lines such as:

• “I don’t like sand”,
• “I wish that I could just wish away my feelings, but I can't”
• “Not if anything to say about it I have.” 

The idea usually goes something like this: "when making the original trilogy, Lucas had other creative people around him who were able to tell him no if his ideas were bad. Many of the actors and editors made changes from the script to make the dialogue better. By the time Lucas made the prequels, everyone around him was a yes man, and so there was no one to reign in Lucas’ bad ideas."

However, based on the evidence of the shooting script and interviews with cast and crew, the extent of the changes to the dialogue at the hands of those other than Lucas and his editors is largely exaggerated when it comes to the original Star Wars film.

It is true however that the actors had some grievances with the dialogue of Star Wars and that they made minor adjustments when they could get away with it. This was especially true for Harrison Ford, who made slight tweaks to nearly all of his lines.

This tweaking process came from the relationship between Lucas and his actors. Lucas was a quiet, unassuming director, who notoriously only gave two directions to actors: “Faster, more intense,” or “Same thing, only better.” As Ford put it:

“George has such a clear vision in his head of what it is that he wants, actually trying to get that out of an actor is a bit of an inconvenience. Now that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like actors or doesn’t appreciate the contribution that they make. It’s just that it’s not George’s favorite part of a job of shooting a movie.”

- Harrison Ford[1]

Or, as Mark Hamill said:

“I have a sneaking suspicion that if there were a way to make movies without actors, George would do it.”

- Mark Hamill[2]

However, Lucas developed a camaraderie with the cast of Star Wars, and crucially gave them the space to add personality to their lines, provided that their creative interpretation fit within his vision for Star Wars. As Lucas put it:

“In terms of changing their lines, well, that’s a matter of letting them have their way. Lots of times actors have very good instincts. They’re thinking about the character a lot more than you are. You’re looking at the whole thing – they’re looking at only that particular person. If they’re uncomfortable or something doesn’t work, it’s usually because there’s something wrong with it. If I have a disagreement about something with an actor, I’ll do it both ways. I’ll spend the time and money on the set to let him have what he wants, but that’s just a matter of give and take. There are some crazy actors in the world, obviously, but the best thing to do is to avoid them. I only want people who are good, talented, and easy to work with, because life is too short for crazy actors.”

- George Lucas[3]

Indeed, Hamill was inspired by Lucas’ leadership:

“You like George so much as a person, and feel so at ease with him as a friend, that you want to please him. He would never embarrass you or make you feel foolish for trying some things – and I tried really amazing things that were really wrong, thinking back on them. I did have a couple of disagreements with him, not big ones, where he’d say, ‘Well, I don’t think he should do it that way.’ And if George thinks you are wrong, there is no way to convince him that you are right.”

- Mark Hamill[4]

For example, Hamill complained about his line about the hidden compartments in the Falcon, “Lucky you had these compartments.” But, according to Hamill, Lucas said, “Just get in the compartments and do it,” and Hamill later admitted that Lucas was right.[5]

Below are selections of lines by each major character in Star Wars with side-by-side comparisons of shooting script dialogue with the final dialogue in the film. Each section also has quotes for the character’s respective actor regarding their feelings about their lines and how they added their own personality to them.

Luke

“There was one great line, though, and it was the hardest piece of dialogue I’d ever memorized. I came about a half hour early to the test, memorizing this line the way you memorize ‘she sells sea shells by the seashore.’ And it was ‘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. What there is, is most likely direct toward a large-scale assault.’ Who talks like that? But you’re selling it.”

- Mark Hamill about his audition[7]

“The script was the bible for me. There were lines I just couldn’t say, but I learned to say them. It might have even helped my character, in a way, that sort of stilted dialogue. But I also kind of kicked myself and wished that I had been loose enough to do what Harrison was doing.”

- Mark Hamill about meeting Harrison Ford[8]

Han

“He visited the set once and then I went over to his hotel room. We were going to go out and have dinner, and I’m flipping through his copy of the script – and I see lines of his just crossed out completely. He’d written things in the margins, saying the same thing basically, but his way. He had an amazing way of keeping the meaning but doing it in a really unique way for his character.”

- Mark Hamill about meeting with Harrison Ford[10]

“Mark makes this big point about my changing dialogue, but I don’t remember really changing that much. I would change the phrasing slightly or put a line or a group of five lines in a different place. But I would usually discuss those with the script girl, rather than George.”

- Harrison Ford[11]

Leia

“George didn’t say anything, which I took to mean, He’s mad. The next day, George came up to me with his hand on his beard and said, ‘You were great yesterday.’ And from then on I knew that when he didn’t talk, that it was okay – that less was more with him. Sometimes George would just say, ‘Anything goes. If you want to change the dialogue, you can,’ or he’d say, ‘Faster’ or ‘More intense’ – and I didn’t know what that meant, either, at the beginning. I just thought it meant that I was not very good. But then I found out that it was okay. I think Harrison told me.”

- Carrie Fisher about her first day of significant dialogue[13]

“I used to go over lines with Harrison and Mark. Harrison would always change his lines. I was very impressed that he could do that. I didn’t know what to do with them. They seemed fine like they were. I was also being agreeable because I kept thinking they were going to realize their mistake soon about hiring me.”

- Carrie Fisher[14]

C-3PO

“C-3PO is a kind of English butler, a cross between Lauren and Hardy with his friend. He loves being around Luke because that’s his purpose – to look after people – he wants to make them happy. I think that’s one reason why the part works. This unlikely shape has all the human attributes and possibly more, though it seems outlandish, because he isn’t human. The odd thing was I kept acting the whole thing out, facially, if I were emotionally upset in a scene or angry, even though no one could see me.”

- Anthony Daniels[15]

“It was primarily because of the fact that it was a British voice. I really wanted to keep the whole thing American. Tony had the most British accent, so I said, ‘No, I want to make him American because he is one of the lead characters.’ I wanted Threepio’s voice to be slightly more used-car-dealer-ish, a little more oily. More of a con man, which is the way it was written, and not really a fussy British robot butler. So I tried and tried, but because Tony was Threepio inside, he really got into the role. We went through thirty people that I actually tested, but none of the voices were as good as Tony’s, so we kept him.”

- George Lucas on why he originally wanted a different voice to dub over Daniels' original performance, but ultimately kept Daniels as the voice of C-3PO[16]

Obi-Wan Kenobi

"What I didn't tell him [Lucas] was that I just couldn't go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines. I'd had enough of the mumbo jumbo."

- Alec Guiness’s recollection in 1999 regarding his feelings about Obi-Wan getting killed off[17]

“At times during Star Wars I was perhaps a bit puzzled, but I never lost faith in the project. There were people around who doubted the sanity of the venture and who were critical of George and Gary [Kurtz, the producer], ‘Lucas doesn’t know what he’s doing,’ they’d say, or ‘Call this filmmaking?’ But I had confidence in them.”

- Alec Guiness in 1980[18]

Darth Vader

James Earl Jones completed the voiceover work for Darth Vader on March 1, 1977 in about two and a half hours, his lines dubbing over David Prowse’s filmed performance.[19] It is likely that many if not all of the dialogue changes came from Lucas rewrites rather than any improvisation from Jones or Prowse, but both actors brought their interpretation to the villain in other ways. As Jones said:

“Vader is a man who never learned the beauties and subtleties of human expression. So we figured out the key to my work was to keep it on a very narrow band of expression – that was the secret.”

- James Earl Jones[20]

Tarkin

“There was a great deal of the script I didn’t understand. Especially the technical jargon. And I wasn’t alone. Many of the stagehands came up to me and asked, ‘What is this all about? I can’t understand a word of it.’ I told them, ‘Neither can I. I’m just saying the lines and trying to sound intelligent.’”

- Peter Cushing[21]

[1] Biography, “George Lucas: Creating an Empire,” produced by Pamela Ridder, aired January 27, 2002, ABC News Productions, YouTube, https://youtu.be/yjDZ6axjhrw?t=3078 (accessed December 20. 2021).

[2] John Seabrook, “Why Is the Force Still with Us?” The New Yorker, December 30, 1997, https://web.archive.org/web/20220105211119/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/06/why-is-the-force-still-with-us.

[3] J. W. Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars (New York: Del Rey Books, 2007), 188

[4] Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 188.

[5] Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 185.

[6] Mark Hamill, Twitter post, June 11, 2020, 5:33 p.m., https://twitter.com/HamillHimself/status/1271209082511192064.

[7] This line comes from the third draft of the script. Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 103.

[8] Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 187.

[9] Joe and Anthony Russo, “The Empire Strikes Back feat. Mark Hamill, Markus and McFeeley,” Pizza Film School, Podcast video, June 26, 2020, https://youtu.be/P3gA73MVx3A.

[10] Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 187.

[11] Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 187.

[12] Most if not all the changes to Leia’s message were made by George Lucas during production, as demonstrated by a modified typed version dated July 6, 1976, which contained further handwritten edits by Lucas. The scene was shot late in principal production on July 16, 1976. Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 215.

[13] Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 177.

[14] Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 187.

[15] Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 151.

[16] Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 265.

[17] “Alec Guinness Blasts Jedi 'Mumbo Jumbo',” Space.com, September 8, 1999, https://archive.ph/20000817083824/http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/guinness.html#selection-1177.0-1177.132.

[18] Brian Jay Jones, George Lucas: A Life (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2016), 224.

[19] Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 264.

[20] Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 264.

[21] Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, 177.