Given Alec Guinness already had an academy award, didn't understand nor like the script, was doing it as a favor to his friend George and insisted as a pre-condition to taking the role he be killed off in the movie. I don't think it was "the role of a lifetime".
Lucas couldn't afford to pay Alec his normal fee so Alec Guinness settled for a % of the movie profits. A pretty good deal as it turned out.
Forty years ago I left a theater in SLC incredulous that I had been blown away by a sci-fi movie. No tin foil, no air conditioning hoses and no Zsa Zsa Gabor! And all I wanted was to hear the music from the Cantina scene about a thousand times more.
The first time I had ever seen a movie in 70mm Dolby stereo and a curved screen. Blown away doesn't even begin to describe what I experienced that day. I too wanted to go work for Lucas and would have given my left nut ( and probably my right as well) to do so. ificouldhietokolob is my hero. 40 years? Holy hell we're old.
Per the books. The Kessel run is through a dangerous area of space full of black hole and "gravitational anomalies". Most people steer clear of it.
Those that do go through stay far away from the "gravitational anomalies". So an average trip around would be through 15 to 20 parsecs of space.
Han being the daring pilot he is, flew closer to the "gravitational anomalies" and shave distance off of the trip.
Think of it as rafting down a river. If you take the left hand fork the river is smooth, meandering and safe. It is 15 miles to your destination. Take the right hand fork and even though it is only 12 miles to your destination, the river is full of rapids, whirlpools and sand bars.
Han cheated on the Kessel run, by going off course, going dangerously close to a black hole, therefor shaving off the distance normally traveled by other ships. He was a crazy man indeed.
George and I are about the same age, and apparently saw many of the same Republic and Columbia serials in the 1950s.
I enjoyed the first one very much, and the second somewhat less. The third was completely forgettable except for Carrie Fisher's metal bikini scenes. I saw the fourth for free as a company perk--as described in a long-ago separate thread--and was so unimpressed that after that I lost interest completely: I haven't seen any of the others, even on television.
Still, 40 years; the series sure has staying power.
My California stake president welcomed us to a young adult fireside and said, "May the force be with you!" Then he grinned and said he saw Star Wars the night before. It was so fitting, so fun, and such a wonderful time in my life.
Ah, my innocence lost. Where did those times go? Why did the Morg have to turn in and become so hurtful? Hans Solo's Boner.
Hated Star Wars. Just hated it, even before any other episodes were filmed.
I found its message of cheap and easy "redemption" extremely disturbing. That Vader could somehow be "forgiven" of the destruction of an entire planet, and the loss of however many billions of lives, merely by chucking the Emperor down a shaft, was to my mind outrageous and appalling. (Even in a B-grade space fantasy.)