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The Canadian actor who was almost a Star Wars star

Few “Star Wars” afficionados know how close we came to having a Canadian in a pivotal role in the original film.

Garrick Hagon, born in England and raised in Toronto, had a very small role in the original “Star Wars” as Biggs Darklighter, also known as Red Three in the squadron that attacked the Death Star. But when the movie was re-issued in 1997, Biggs’ role was expanded slightly to include a 32-second scene in the Rebel hangar. Biggs and Luke Skywalker embrace and talk about some past experiences and how far they’ve come, alluding to some long-lost friendship that’s never explained.

Now, a short documentary has shed light on how that scene came to be, and what it all meant. And the short version is, if George Lucas had stuck to his original filming, Hagon might be famous as Luke’s cool cape-wearing childhood best friend, instead of being relegated to the annals of Wookipedia trivia as a red squadron fighter who got blown up.

Jamie Benning spoke to Hagon for “Blast it Biggs! Where are you?!” about the experience of shooting “Star Wars,” and how it felt to be left mainly on the cutting room floor.

Biggs description in the script was “a burly handsome boy, a few years older than the rest…his flashy city attire is a sharp contrast to the loose-fitting tunics of the farm boys.”

“It was a good part,” Hagon said.

In the deleted scene, meant to open the film, Biggs tells Luke - who’s already preoccupied with spotting rebel fighters in the sky - that he and some of his compatriots are breaking free to join the rebellion. Luke’s wide-eyed bewilderment belies his future commitment to the cause, and Biggs’ steadfast refusal to be drafted by the Empire leaves Luke longing to get away from Tattoine. To understand Luke’s commitment to the rebellion later in the film, this scene would have been as close to actual exposition as Star Wars could get.

Sure enough, the scene ends with Luke telling Biggs, “Take it easy, buddy. you’ll always be the best friend I’ve ever had.”


Hagon thinks the scene would have offered a lot to the original film.

“There’s a lot in that scene that explains why (Luke) leaves the farm and goes off to the rebels.”

“There’s a lot just in terms of character, in terms of the relationship with (Luke) and the gang at Anchorhead,” Hagon said.

“To miss that is a gap, to me.”

Alas, "Star Wars” creator George Lucas said the roles were created to placate critics, and he wasn’t comfortable with keeping them in the film.

“Basically they didn’t work,” Lucas said at the beginning of Bennings’ documentary.

Lucas said critics thought the opening scenes of the movie were too wrapped up in science fiction, and needed a personal touch.

“(They said) ’it’s all about robots. you’ve got to put some people in the beginning’. So I put Luke in the beginning of the movie.”

Wwhat they shot was a four -minute scene that Hagon said was all-or-nothing; there wasn’t really an opportunity to shorten it.

“There was too much in there,” he said, “There was too much information to cut it and put little pieces of the scene back.”

When Lucas tried to drop the scene into the script, he felt it didn’t fit.

“We cut it together and it just didn’t work. So we put it back the way it was intended.”

As working actor, Hagon wasn’t particularly fazed by the cuts, until the movie became a global phenomenon.

“We didn’t really know how gigantic it was,” Hagon said.

“At the time is was admiration mixed with disappointment. I realized then what a chunk had gone.”

If it had to end, though, at least Biggs got to go out with a bang - he was blown up on the approach to the Death Star by none other than Darth Vader himself.

Blast it Biggs! Where are you?! - By @jamieswb from Filmumentaries - Jamie Benning on Vimeo.