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Star Wars has plenty of iconic lines. From “May the Force be with you,” to “I have a bad feeling about this,” there is no shortage of memorable Star Wars dialogue. However, not every line was a winner. No, I’m not talking about “I don’t like sand.” According to Mark Hamill, his original Star Wars screentest was filled with dialogue so awful that he breathed a sigh of relief when it was deleted from the final movie.

“Here’s a line that’s in the screen test. Thank God it’s cut from the movie, but it’ll give you an idea of how difficult it was to try and make the dialogue sound like it had just occurred to us and spontaneously we had the response,” Hamill says during an interview on Bullseye with Jesse Thorn. “Solo says like, ‘Okay kid, I’ve held up my side of the bargain.’ We’re at the Death Star, and we didn’t realize what we were going to be up against. ‘The first chance I get, I’m dropping you, the droids, and you can pay me later.’ And I say, and this is the actual line, ‘But we can’t turn back. Fear is their greatest defense. I doubt the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust, and what there is, is more likely directed towards a large-scale assault.’ Huh?”

“Intellectually, I can make sense of it but now try and make it sound like it’s an original thought that popped into your head. As Harrison once said to George about the dialogue, ‘[grumpy Harrison Ford impression] Hey, you can write this shit, but you just can’t say it.’ Boy, did he nail it.”

Get to know, understand, and love the Star Wars franchise more with our Star Wars watch order, guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies & TV shows, and all the Star Wars movies and Star Wars TV shows ranked.