For some of us, it’s difficult to comprehend the idea that there are people in this world who have not seen the Star Wars movies. The films have become such a significant part of the culture that the idea that some movie-goers could live for years without seeing them doesn’t make any sense. That being said, even some of those who have never seen the films still wind up knowing a great deal about them, simply by growing up in a culture that is obsessed with them. But that’s not true for everyone. There is at least one individual who didn’t know what the Millennium Falcon was… and somehow that person was Harrison Ford’s wife, Calista Flockhart.
As it turns out actress, the Supergirl actress had never actually seen the original Star Wars movies, and as she recently revealed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, this wound up being a somewhat humorous issue when she received the call that Harrison Ford’s leg had been broken on the set of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. A producer informed her that a door had fallen off the Millennium Falcon and inured the legendary actor. For most of us that’s a pretty self-explanatory statement, but for Flockhart… not so much. Her initial understanding was that something had happened to Ford while flying commercial. Said Flockhart,
I called a friend of mine and I said what the hell is the Millennium Falcon? I have never heard of that airline.
Our first guess when we heard this was that she was pulling everyone's leg. Calista Flockhart is a professional actress, after all, and is married to Han Solo. If she is joking, though, she’s completely committed to selling the gag. Truthfully, she looks sincere. Jimmy Kimmel is understandably stunned. It’s one thing to have never actually seen the movie, but quite another to not know them. They’ve become such cultural touchstones that we’d expect that even those who’ve never sat through them could give you most of the major plot points of the original trilogy. It makes me wonder: If she finally does watch the movies, was the revelation at the end of The Empire Strikes Back actually still a surprise? That’s kind of awesome if we’re being honest. We wish we could be shocked by that again.
You can watch Calista Flockhart on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in the embed below:
Of course, the great irony here is that her husband is Harrison Ford. To be fair, if Calista Flockhart made it all the way to a marriage with Harrison Ford without knowing the Millennium Falcon, there’s legitimately no reason why that would change after the fact. While Ford appears to have warmed back up to being Han Solo, he’s never been as in love with character as the rest of us. If they ever find themselves chatting with each other about past movie roles, Han Solo probably doesn’t come up. Flockhart’s probably sick of hearing about Indiana Jones though.
Do you know somebody who’s never seen the original Star Wars trilogy, or are you that person? How well can you fake it just by what you’ve heard around the water cooler?
