George Lucas Didn't Like Harrison Ford's Improvised Star Wars Line, But Fans Are Totally Obsessed

Along with lightsabers and droids, "Star Wars" has become famous for some lines like "May the Force be with you," and, of course, "Do or do not, there is no try." While almost every great line from George Lucas' creation was scripted, one of the most famous lines in the nearly 50 years of "Star Wars" history was made up on the spot by Harrison Ford. While Ford wasn't Lucas' first choice to play the cocky spice smuggler turned rebel hero Han Solo (Al Pacino turned down "Star Wars"), it's impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. And one improvised moment in "The Empire Strikes Back" shows why Ford was the perfect choice. In the movie, when Han Solo is about to be frozen in carbonite, Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia finally admits her true feelings for him, saying, "I love you," and, in the script, Han Solo responds with "I love you, too." But that isn't what happens in the film.

As Ford told filmmaker Jon Favreau, he didn't like the line, feeling that "This character never behaved so unabashedly emotional and conventional before, and I thought, 'Are we pissing away this great opportunity for the character?'" After doing the scene with the line as written, director Irvin Kershner let Ford, who has a healthy relationship history, do a take where the actor changed it to the iconic line, "I know." Kershner, who directed the film, loved the improv, even as others on set weren't so sure. George Lucas wasn't a fan of the line, as Ford tells it, "I think it is fair enough to say he went apes—. He thought it was horrible." 

George Lucas worried that audiences would laugh when Han Solo told Princess Leia "I know," and not in a good way. The "Star Wars" creator wanted to use a take where Han Solo says "I love you, too," but Irvin Kershner believed that Harrison Ford's improvised line would hit with the audience. The two agreed to create two versions of the movie — one with "I love you, too," and one with "I know" — for preview screenings. The first screening was for the "I know" cut and, as Kershner told Vanity Fair, the audience loved it. "When the film was over, people came up and said that is the most wonderful line and it worked. So George decided not to have the second screening." And the rest was history. While Lucas and Kershner may have felt differently about the famous line, there was no ill will between them. To Kershner, who also made the James Bond classic "Never Say Never Again," "George was the best producer I ever worked with." 

Lucas didn't hold it against Ford either, casting him as Indiana Jones in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," where the actor once again improvised a scene. Lucas, along with Steven Spielberg, had constructed a three-page fight sequence that would see Indiana Jones face off against a swordsman in what Spielberg told "Entertainment Tonight" would be "the definitive whip against the sword fight." But when it came time to shoot the scene, Ford was suffering from a bad case of dysentery. Ford came up with having Indiana Jones, who had already gone through a lot in the previous scene, pull out his gun and shoot the swordsman, creating one of the most iconic moments in the movie.