20 Mind-Blowing Facts About Star Wars

3. The Stench Of Garbage Was So Bad During The Trash Compactor Scene That Mark Hamill Burst A Blood Vessel In His Face

The scene in which Han, Luke and Leia bail into the trash compactor is great. It's a brief scene, but it raises the stakes phenomenally and is also dripping (quite literally) with strangeness. It's a bizarre glimpse into the Star Wars universe, and incredibly memorable. Though the scene itself looks dirty and disgusting, you'd think that most of the grim aesthetic would be owing to artificial set design. Not so - it's more real than you'd think. In fact, it's reported that the smell of trash during filming was so terrible that Mark Hamill actually burst a blood vessel in his face while holding his breath. This led to filming having to be carefully adjusted for the remainder of the scene so that they only filmed one half of Hamill's face.
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Contributor

Commonly found reading, sitting firmly in a seat at the cinema (bottle of water and a Freddo bar, please) or listening to the Mountain Goats.