Harrison Ford on the movie that knocked him out: “I knew I was gonna see something I’d never seen before”
In the 1970s, Harrison Ford would either become a carpenter or a movie star. To his great fortune, he crossed paths with George Lucas, who cast him in his breakout role in American Graffiti. Lucas, keen to work with as many new actors as possible, initially avoided Ford when piecing together a cast for his next project but eventually submitted to the actor’s unrivalled suitability for the role of Han Solo.
When auditioning for the first Star Wars movie, A New Hope, Ford was excited by the scope of Lucas’ vision. Inspired by previous sci-fi masterpieces like Flash Gordon and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Lucas wanted to create a universe far, far away and spellbind his audience with state-of-the-art special effects and cinematic sorcery.
“Did I think they might be successful films? Yes—or I would have run away,” Ford reflected in an interview with Inquirer. Sci-fi wasn’t exactly Ford’s usual cup of tea, and he understood the apprehensions of some of his peers. Still, he foresaw huge success for the movie. “It might have seemed odd to the British crew when we were making the first Star Wars. They might have said, ‘What’s going on here?’ Like, there’s a seven-foot-tall man in a dog suit.”
Among the hesitant stakeholders was the British acting legend Alec Guinness, who portrayed Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original trilogy. His opinion on the project only worsened over time, too. “Apart from the money, I regret having embarked on the film,” Guinness grumbled during production. “I like them well enough, but it’s not an acting job. The dialogue—which is lamentable—keeps being changed and only slightly improved, and I find myself old and out of touch with the young.”
Despite his misgivings, Guinness gave one of the most memorable performances of his career and earned an Academy Award nomination for his trouble. “It was, for me, fascinating to watch Alec Guinness,” Ford once remembered. “He was always prepared, always professional, always very kind to the other actors. He had a very clear head about how to serve the story.”
Unlike Guinness, who was over 25 years older, Ford was wholly impressed by the finished product. From the first moment of A New Hope, he knew Lucas had changed sci-fi cinema forever. “The first film, you may remember, starts with a scroll. And then, a huge spaceship comes closer and closer and feels as if it flew off the screen,” he said. “That absolutely knocked me out.”
From a modern perspective, this scene is nothing new, but at the time, it was unprecedented. “The special effects, the visual element, the sound design, and the music all came together at that one moment right at the beginning of the film,” Ford added. “I knew that I was going to see something I’d never seen before.”
With two additional movies in the initial trilogy, Star Wars became one of the most acclaimed movie franchises of the 20th century. Over the millennium, Lucas followed up his success with a prequel trilogy, cementing the franchise’s position as the most famous sci-fi saga of all time. Even today, Disney continues to fly the Star Wars flag with an unrelenting flow of spin-off series and sequel movies.
