"EVERY SAGA HAS A BEGINNING..."

Thursday, 10 June 2021

AN 'EMPIRE' AT 40: THE LOVERS OF BESPIN!


In their guest quarters on Cloud City, Han, at first telling Leia she looks beautiful and that she should wear girl's clothes more often, gets a slightly brusque, near cold shoulder approach from the Princess as he tries wooing her for a kiss. She is more intent on discussing Luke and the 'charming' Lando in the original version of this filmed scene (shot April 6th, 1979), later reshot two weeks later to heighten Leia's concern at being on Bespin - for the now missing Threepio and her building mistrust of Lando. In the unused version Han leads the scene in their guest quarters, but in the new version it is reversed, as he instead happily comes in to the room to inform Leia about continuing repairs to the Millennium Falcon.



Contact sheet of on-set shot images from the scene.




Below, a selection of images from the deleted footage as seen in the 2004 Empire of Dreams documentary...








The scene would be reshot on the 17th April with revised dialogue that was felt to play better and be more in character for Han and Leia at this point in the story.

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