John Boyega Hints 'The Last Jedi' Carries On 'Star Wars' Tradition of Making Actors Wrestle With Awkward Dialogue
What’s synonymous with Star Wars? We quickly think of lightsabers, “The Force,” Darth Vader, Yoda, pew-pew-pew aerial dogfights, and so much more. But there’s one less-stellar element that fans have come to expect ever since the franchise’s 1977 inception: awkward dialogue. For a perfect example, recall Anakin Skywalker expounding on the negative attributes of sand in 2002’s Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones:
Judging by star John Boyega‘s latest tongue-in-cheek Instagram post (see below), the tradition of saddling its actors with serious mouthfuls of sci-fi-speak promises to continue with The Last Jedi, this winter’s highly anticipated sequel to 2015’s The Force Awakens:
A post shared by BOYEGA (@jboyega_) on Mar 4, 2017 at 3:06pm PST
Boyega’s in good company among Star Wars actors who’ve spoken up about how tricky it is to credibly deliver the series’ outlandish names, places, and technical jargon. As Peter Biskind recounted in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, his seminal book about movies in the ’70s, Harrison Ford once famously told George Lucas about his Star Wars script, “George, you can type this s–t, but you sure can’t say it.”
Related: ‘Star Wars’ Turns 40: See Iconic ‘New Hope’ Scenes Re-created With Anniversary Action Figures
Meanwhile, at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival (via Uproxx), the late Carrie Fisher revealed that the statement “I have placed information vital to the survival of the Rebellion into the memory systems of this R2 unit” was her least favorite line of dialogue in the entire original trilogy. In fact, she so loathed that single sentence that it motivated her to become a writer herself.
Like Fisher, Mark Hamill also found at least one Luke Skywalker speech absolutely preposterous. As you can see in the clip below from Hamill’s appearance on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show back in 1977 (while doing promotion for Episode IV), the actor thought his lines so absurd — “But we can’t turn back! Fear is their greatest defense. I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust. And what there is is most likely targeted towards a large scale assault” — he had to ask, “Who talks like this, George?”
Hamill has since repeated his astonishment at Lucas’ clunky writing — with regard to those lines in particular — as well as commented on the filmmaker’s general lackadaisical attitude toward things like character development. We’ll soon see if he feels likewise about The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson’s script — which will undoubtedly put a major focus on Luke Skywalker and his relationship with Daisy Ridley’s Rey — when The Last Jedi blasts into theaters on Dec. 15.
J.J. Abrams Is Hoping ‘The Last Jedi’ Star Mark Hamill Gets an Oscar Nomination:
Read More:
