While the original Star Wars: A New Hope is one of the most influential movies ever made, the film that launched a massive franchise that is still making billions of dollars today, it has to be said, the movie can get a little silly. While George Lucas continually tried to update and improve the movie over the years, one thing that he couldn't fix were the actual human performances, and it's hard to not see how they have often not aged all that well.
Such is the case with one line Mark Hamill delivers while on board the Death Star. A fan recently posted a clip of the bit, where Luke Skywalker gets mad at Han Solo for not wanting to help Princess Leia. The fan pokes fun at the line for the speed with which Hamill delivered it. The actor actually responded with his own incredibly high speed response, explaining that his delivery came from his director. Apparently George Lucas wanted it that way.
While it's actually more than a little difficult to parse Mark Hamill's tweet with everything run together like that, but the key bit comes at the end, where the actor revels that George Lucas would apparently direct his actors to deliver lines frequently "faster with more intensity." So that's exactly what Hamill did. The line comes across a little too fast, but the urgency of it is certainly there, so as far as that goes, it seems it worked.
There are a few other places where it seems George Lucas might have given this same direction, a lot of the lines where a character is excited are given in a very rapid fire manner. If nothing else Mark Hamill should be commended for giving this line so well. It's difficult to be clear when you're talking so fast, and as quick as he's going here, the line itself is perfectly clear. One wonders if it took a few takes to get it right.
Whether it's poking fun at Luke's fast talking, or his wining about power converters, there are many elements of the original Star Wars film that even the most serious fans can have fun with.
While Star Wars has been one of the most talked about and deeply explored films since its initial 1977 release, it's great to still get new comments and perspectives from the performers like Mark Hamill thanks to social media. Where else would you learn that most of the X-Wing pilots attacking the Death Star weren't wearing pants? He's also put to bed rumors and myths that have existed for decades.
As wild as the original Star Wars may have gotten when it came to delivering lines, we know there was some of George Lucas' dialogue that Hamill had to talk George out of using, it's still one of the greatest movies ever. It launched a franchise that shows no signs of stopping, even if we have no idea where it's going to go from here.
