3
Han, Luke, and Leia
Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope
Writer: George Lucas
Director: George Lucas
At some point, you think you’ve seen it all when it comes to Star Wars. You know all the behind-the-scenes stories, you’ve seen all the “never before published” photos and found all the rarest of the rare interviews. Then, one day, something comes your way and you’re stunned to learn it slipped through the cracks of your fandom but not-so-secretly pleased you get to see something new. So was the case with me when my friend, storyteller and writer Dan Farren, passed me a shaky DVD copy of the old Mike Douglas show. Co-hosted by bona fide ‘70s TV star Richard Thomas in the summer of 1977, the show features Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, and Mark Hamill, the stars of that brand-new space movie Star Wars. The interview can be found online (what can’t), but I had just never seen it. It never popped up on my radar screen. But in my hands now was a broadcast copy of the show. It skips and jumps, cracks and pops, but, complete with commercials, young kids reading poetry, and baseball stars Pete Rose and Tom Seaver, it is an absolute time capsule, a monument to the era where Star Wars was just beginning to shape our world.
Though coming two months after the release of A New Hope, the movie and its stars are still treated like a mysterious curiosity. Mike Douglas talks about the box office success (“It’s now ahead of Jaws”), but no one quite knew what was happening. Carrie Fisher comes out first because, as the daughter of Hollywood royalty Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, they at least had something to talk about. Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill come out after the commercial break. Carrie is smart, poignant, and funny as always but muted, as if she is still playing the game instead of smashing through it the way she later learns to. Harrison is charmingly distant, but not yet as prickly as he wanted to be. Mark Hamill is as genuine as he is now, but still every bit the wide-eyed kid he portrayed on screen. It’s a different time and era, but what you see is clear. This is the Big Three. The heart of the Star Wars’ spirit.
Princess Leia, Han Solo, and Luke Skywalker don’t have to be some of your favorite characters (though they most likely are). This isn’t about that. The Star Wars universe has continued to roll out memorable and inspirational characters. More are on the way. Nien Nunb, Max Rebo, or Meeber Gascon might be more to your liking but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that these are the three faces of this franchise. The ones on whose backs this house was built.
A New Hope is where the bond of the Big Three was formed, both with each other and the audience. I’m particularly drawn to the many moments during the escape from the Death Star, after Leia has been freed from her cell and the trash compactor sequence ends, and the three of them run around finding themselves as characters and co-stars. At one point during the action, Han, Luke, and Leia come to a stop, side by side, in one shot. It’s a moment frozen in time, used often as a press shot and forever burned into our brains: the heroes of Star Wars, then and now, generation after generation, discovering themselves in these three characters.
They were perfectly matched. Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford bring it up on the classic interview with Mike Douglas. The three of them were brought together by George Lucas and it was either them or three other completely different names. It was designed to be an ensemble. Kurt Russell, William Katt, and Cindy Williams could have got the gig, and nothing would have been the same. The chemistry was the key. Sometimes, in these real-life stories behind the making of the movies that change us all, something magical happens and the fates align. These are not just the right choices. They are the choices. Each one embodied their respective roles. As Carrie Fisher once said, “I think I am Princess Leia, and Princess Leia is me. It’s like a Moebius striptease.” It was all there in the DNA.
George Lucas created this wonderful world we all love to play in, and he never could have imagined how much it would grow, expand, and keep going. The characters, moments, and memories are many, each one carrying their own significance and purpose. Yet, there will never be another Big Three. There can’t be. As I watched them all explain to a slightly bewildered but sincere Mike Douglas the very nature of their characters, I was struck at how it was all there at the beginning: the dashing rogue with the rough exterior, the good-natured soul of destiny, and the vibrant daughter of royalty fighting her own way through life. Harrison, Mark, and Carrie explained what the characters were and remained so perfectly. They knew them. They were them. They will always be them. The very center of the Star Wars universe.