Harrison Ford Has Always Had a Curmudgeonly Relationship With 'Star Wars'

Although he seems like a pretty nice guy, Harrison Ford has carefully cultivated a reputation as a grump over the course of decades of movie stardom. While that grumpiness can extend to almost anything, he has always been particularly grumpy about Star Wars, the franchise that almost indisputably transformed him into a movie star.

Following decades of being a bit of a grump about the franchise, many people want to know why Harrison Ford seems to hate Star Wars. Here's what we know.

Although Harrison has never come out and said that he hated Star Wars, it's also clear that he doesn't find the character to be as enriching as his work in even the Indiana Jones franchise. It's also well known that Harrison wanted his character Han Solo to die in The Empire Strikes Back and was frustrated when he was kept around both for that movie and for Return of the Jedi as well, per FandomWire.

While he hasn't always had a totally great relationship with Star Wars, though, it's noteworthy that he agreed to come back for the sequel trilogy. There have long been rumors that Harrison only agreed to return for The Force Awakens if they finally agreed to kill him, and indeed, that's exactly what happened in that movie. Even so, though, reports at the time suggested that Harrison was enthusiastic about his return.

“I think what really got him excited was when he read the first draft, and he saw where we were going and what we were doing. He was immediately on board, and then he sat down and had a great conversation with J.J. and went through, in detail, what we were thinking about doing,” Kathleen Kennedy told Entertainment Weekly in 2015. “And then, you know, Harrison — and I’ve always found this over the years with the Indiana Jones films we’ve all done together — he’s incredibly collaborative."

While it's fair to say that Harrison does not love Star Wars the way he does Indiana Jones, that makes sense. Star Wars movies are not really about Han Solo, whereas his character's name is in the title of the other franchise. The movies simply wouldn't exist without him.

In the early part of his career, Harrison was likely concerned that he would be pigeon-holed into roles like the one he played in Star Wars.

As he found success outside the confines of the franchise, it seems he felt more comfortable returning to the character, even as he continued to play something of a curmudgeon about the franchise in public. We might never know exactly how he feels about the character or what it meant for his career.

What seems evident, though, is that you don't return to a character decades later if you hate the franchise and everything it stands for. Star Wars is an important part of his legacy, and it seems like he knows that.