A long, long time ago, and not in a very distant galaxy, the ‘Jedi’ who defeated the Empire was called Luke Starkiller, and not Skywalker, and his friend Han Solo, played by Harrison Fordhe forgot a script in a house in London that now sees the light turned into a small treasure.
The original script of the first film in the Star Wars saga, which Ford used in 1976, is up for auction by decision of its owners, the owners of the house in Notting Hill (west of London) where the film stayed. actor during filming.
It is a modest gem, with a relatively low estimated value of between 8,000 and 12,000 pounds (9,400 and 14,000 euros), but for fans of the galactic odyssey it contains nuggets of gold from the first page: The adventures of Luke Starkiller, as collected in ‘Diary of the Whills’is the title of a text that signs George Lucas.
At that time, the character he played Mark Hamill He didn’t even carry his final name of Luke Skywalker.
Exegetes of the saga say that Lucas made the modification to avoid misunderstandings with the infamous criminal Charles Manson (Starkiller means ‘the star killer’), who terrorized Hollywood in those years.
Hamill himself lamented in 2015 through his social networks that when the film was still being filmed in Tunisia and London, he was still called Luke Starkiller. “How sad,” he wrote on Twitter (now X).
The script that will be auctioned by the specialized house Excalibur Auctions on February 17 is the fourth revised draft out of a total of five, dated March 15, 1976.
Photograph of the original script of the first film in the Star Wars saga, which has Luke Starkiller in its title. Photo EFEDespite being incomplete, it includes scenes and characters that would end up disappearing from the final montage.
Along with the text, other papers that Ford left in the British capital will also be auctioned, such as a letter from his agent Patricia McQueeney, full of humor and winks, in which she reproaches him for not having telephoned his then wife, Mary Marquadt.
A summer in Notting Hill
Beyond the bidding, there is a personal story that links Ford to the family that is now putting some of its forgotten belongings up for sale.
It is a modest jewel, with an estimated value of between 8,000 and 12,000 pounds (9,400 and 14,000 euros), but for fans it is pure gold. “The adventures of Luke Starkiller, as recorded in ‘Diary of the Whills'”, is the title of a text signed by George Lucas. Photo EFEIn the summer of 1976, Harrison Ford took his first steps into the world of cinema. He had had some small roles in American Grafittifrom Lucas himself, or in The conversationby Francis Ford Coppola, “but no one knew what Star Wars was going to convert,” Jonathan Torode, an expert at Excalibur, explains to EFE.
So when he rented the top two floors of a house on Elgin Crescent in Notting Hill to a couple who lived on the ground floor, they had no idea who their distinguished tenant was, says Torode.
The family immediately connected with the actor, and they enjoyed some delicious summer evenings talking about movies. However, a woman who worked as a domestic worker and who was even more of a movie fan was quite scared when she recognized him in the house.
Harrison Ford in the role of Han Solo in the film “Star Wars”, 1977. The script was forgotten, and now it is being auctioned.The owners remember him as an “excellent” tenant, very tidy and polite. According to Excalibur, the actor wanted to contribute by contributing his own money to buy new plants for the garden where they held his dinners.
His co-stars, such as Hamill and Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia, also passed through that house, which it is estimated that Ford must have rented for six to eight months.
Now the owners of the things that the stars left in their wake, surely oblivious to the impact that the film would have, put them up for sale with the objective, explains Torode, of helping their grandchildren financially.