The lines Carrie Fisher improvised in her final movie
Cinema must have been pretty quiet before 1977. Sure, Francis Ford Coppola was offering explosive movies in the form of Apocalypse Now and The Godfather, and Steven Spielberg had prompted the start of the blockbuster era with Jaws, but everything would change upon the emergence of George Lucas’ Star Wars.
A commercial game-changer, Lucas’ original trilogy prompted mania from fans across the globe, with the first movie making $775.8million from a budget of just $11m. Seeing that they had a phenomenon on their hands, the success of the original Star Wars movie sparked merchandise deals from every corner of the market as the film was plastered on posters, pens, lunch boxes, action figures and fast food restaurants.
The movie also made a name for the lead cast, with Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher each hitting new heights of fame following the success of the movie. Hamill primarily stuck close to the franchise, whilst Ford became a Hollywood leading man, whilst Fisher became a cult figure, shining in the Star Wars movies all whilst informing key figures of the industry from behind the scenes.
As well as a star of the silver screen, appearing in The Blues Brothers and Hannah and Her Sisters, Fisher was also a well-known script doctor and editor, helping to refine movies such as Hook, The Last Action Hero, and The Wedding Singer.
Towards the end of her career, Fisher spent much time and effort tending to these scripts, even making significant changes to the screenplay for Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi, a film that would be her very last.
Speaking to People, Johnson revealed that many of the film’s funniest lines were actually crafted by the actor, including the moment when Hamill’s Skywalker meets Fisher’s Leia for the first time in years, with the latter telling him that she’d changed her hair. “That was a Carrie Fisher line. Of course it was,” Johnson told the publication, adding that she also added the line “You go, I’ve said it enough” that Leia utters to Laura Dern’s Admiral Holdo, making reference to the series’ iconic phrase “May the Force be with you”.
Continuing, the director explains: “I think that as Star Wars fans, especially as adults, you can get into a mindset of wanting it to just be the heavy opera. And I don’t know, I was 10 years old when Return of the Jedi came out. That was the perfect age for it. And the humor and the slight goofiness of it also, and kind of the slight free-wheeling feel of it, and how it’s unafraid to have fun, that to me is essential”.
As for his behind-the-scenes collaboration with Fisher, who also takes a minor role in the movie, he adds: “I would sit down with her and she would just give me…After an hour, I would have filled up pages and pages writing down the notes and one-liners that she would pitch…And so we tried to work them in whenever we could”.
Take a look at a behind-the-scenes clip from The Last Jedi below, including the late Carrie Fisher and Johnson.
