DELETED SCENE: HAN AND THE LIFTERS!

Image: via STAR WARS ARCHIVES website.

On the breathtaking Rebel Base hangar set built on the then recently opened STAR WARS STAGE at Elstree, circa Summer 1979, Irvin Kershner directs Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher by the Millennium Falcon, for a brief visual comedy moment/gag linked to the ship's in-repair lifters, which subsequently comedically stall, watched by a less than impressed and smirking Princess Leia-a further dig at lover-to- be Han Solo. This scene, which onscreen showed the one and only time that production Designer Norman Reynold's specially built prop could move, was an early casualty of scene rearranging in the editing room, and was later replaced by several other evacuation-related moments, including a bridging Second Unit moment directed by George Lucas, showing the back-to-health Luke talking/saying goodbye to a Medical Droid.

Echo Base on red alert with the arrival of the Imperial fleet in the system.

The deleted scene in question.

The scene appears on page 48 of the Warner Brothers 1997 printed edition of Donald F. Glut's movie adaptation, and, in the book's structure, was originally to have taken place after Leia had addressed the Rebel pilots on the evacuation.

Footage of the scene was released online by Lucasfilm in December 2020.

Two behind the scenes images of Carrie Fisher during the scene's filming.