Mark Hamill Says Famous 'Star Wars' Goof Is 'Total BS'

Mark Hamill in the original ‘Star Wars’ (Lucasfilm)

Mark Hamill wants to set the record straight on his most famous Star Wars blooper. In the original 1977 film, after Luke Skywalker returns from destroying the Death Star, he emerges from his X-Wing fighter and runs into Princess Leia’s arms. Leia (Carrie Fisher) joyfully shouts, “Luke!” And in response, Luke (Hamill) appears to shout out his co-star’s real name: “Carrie!” Then they both break down in happy laughter. (Watch the clip below.)

That moment has long been treasured by Star Wars fans as an endearing goof that snuck into the final cut. This week, the scene appeared as part of a Screenrant video called “10 Movie Outtakes That Made It To the Big Screen.” But when a fan asked Hamill about his flub on Twitter yesterday, the actor’s response was unequivocal: He never said “Carrie.”

Watch the ‘Star Wars’ scene in which Mark Hamill allegedly shouts ‘Carrie!’ — or does he?

In other words, Hamill is saying that his dialogue in that moment was added in post-production, so spontaneously shouting “Carrie!” would have been impossible. Instead, he recorded the line “There she is!,” which was inserted by the sound designer in such a way that the “is” was drowned out by crowd noise. And “there she” sounds like “Carrie.”

That sounds like a pretty convoluted explanation, but Hamill has offered it up before. Before the days of 140-character limits, in a 1996 AOL chat (archived on a Mark Hamill fan page), the actor attempted to debunk the “Carrie” story. “The yelling ‘Carrie’ rumor, is wrong, was always wrong despite the fact that it was printed in a book of film bloopers,” he wrote. “The entire scene was ‘looped,’ which meant post dubbing dialogue and sound effects later, so it would’ve had to have been a deliberate ‘in’ joke, but it wasn’t. The actual phrase said was ‘There she…’ as in ‘There she is’ as I was looking for the Princess in the crowd, and that’s what I dubbed. Because the rumor was printed, people believe it, but I don’t want to deny it too much, because that makes people believe it more. To think that I would momentarily forget the character’s name and address them by the actor’s name, and that *no one* in the hundreds of people on the set would notice, is a rumor that is ludicrous at best.”

We have to admit: We’re still skeptical. While it totally makes sense that dubbing would have been used in a bustling crowd scene, Hamill doesn’t look or sound like he’s saying “There she is!” His joyful outburst sounds more like “Yay!” or “Hey!” — or, you know, “Carrie!” But maybe that’s wishful thinking on our part. After all the tinkering George Lucas did to erase any perceived flaws in the original trilogy, that one little moment of human error seems more priceless than ever.