10 Star Wars Moments Deeper Than You Think

One of A New Hope's more notable eccentricities is Princess Leia's (Carrie Fisher) changing accent in the early stages of the movie.

Though Leia predominantly speaks with an American accent throughout the Star Wars series, she slips into a distinctly British-sounding accent when speaking with Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing).

Fisher has stated in the past that the real reason for the accent was that she had been living in England for a while before shooting and this scene was the first one that she shot.

But in 2016 a canonical explanation was given in Claudia Grey's novel Star Wars: Bloodline, where it was stated that Leia affected the "aristocratic" accent in an attempt to mock Tarkin.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly to promote the novel, Grey further expanded on the decision to explain Leia's accent:

"In interviews, Fisher laughs at herself for that scene she has with Tarkin in A New Hope, because Carrie Fisher has an English accent in that scene, and she doesn't in any other scene in the movie. She sort of laughs at her younger self for being so influenced by Peter Cushing. But I thought: I'm gonna use that. So there's an explanation in [Bloodline] that she's actually making fun of Tarkin. She's mocking his accent in that moment. She remembers that's what she was doing. So that moment has been explained. It's no longer a problem."

While this is technically a retcon, Bloodline is a canon novel, so for all intents and purposes it has retroactively deepened the meaning of that scene. If it works, it works.