The role Harrison Ford wants to delete from history: “It doesn’t exist”
Having been a movie star for the better part of 50 years, somebody would have to travel very far to discover a part of the world where nobody’s heard of Harrison Ford, which comes with the territory when the actor has played two of the most iconic characters in cinema history.
It was Han Solo that made him famous, but it was Indiana Jones that made him an icon. That’s without even mentioning Blade Runner‘s protagonist Rick Deckard, his status as the only person to play Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan in more than one film, or his contributions to hits and classics like The Conversation, The Fugitive, Witness, and Air Force One.
He’s about as famous as it gets, and one of the biggest downsides of such status is that people tend to have very long memories of performances that don’t work. For Ford, he was merely completing a contractual obligation, but as time wore on, it became a dark cloud that loomed so large over his filmography that he decided the best way to confront his performative nadir was to deny its existence.
Nobody could have predicted before the release of George Lucas’ Star Wars that it would become the highest-grossing release of all time, win eight Academy Awards for its technological innovations, and launch a multi-billion empire that’s remained at the forefront of the pop culture consciousness ever since.
Ford’s signature grumpiness saw him grow weary about fielding questions relating to a galaxy far, far away a long time ago, but one thing he’ll never answer is any lines of inquiry tied to the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. Why? Because, as far as he’s concerned, it’s been wiped from his memory banks, and he wishes everybody else would do the same way.
Ford pleaded the fifth when pressed for his recollections on the remarkably shoddy and overpoweringly cheesy made-for-TV effort that got most of the band back together and dropped in some random guests, including Bea Arthur and Jefferson Starship. “None whatsoever,” came the flat reply to how much he remembered from his experience. “No, it doesn’t exist.”
Ford would rather pretend the Star Wars Holiday Special didn’t happen, and on the plus side, he found an ally in George Lucas, who couldn’t have agreed more. Even though the one-off production aired in November 1978, it’s never been screened again through official channels, nor has it ever been granted a release on either home video, on-demand, or streaming.
It’s become something of a cult favourite among the Star Wars fandom for the sole reason that it’s so incredibly shitty, but when Lucas refuses to give it a second day in the sun, and Ford operates under the impression that it never happened at all, the chances of it being dusted off, restored, or remastered in an official capacity remain as slim as it gets.
