facts-i-just-made-up:

The accidental on set marriage of Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford

The closing scene of Star Wars was filmed in a Hawaiian temple on Niihau. As Lucas had not scripted a specific ritual for the awarding of the medals, he relied on the temple priest to supply a brief but visually appealing ceremony.

The priest chose a marriage ceremony based on the exchange of Leis, for which the medallion props were used. Lucas filmed the scene according to the priest’s directions without informing the actors that on the island, the marriage ceremony was considered legal. Thus, Hamill and Ford were properly and legally wed.

They learned of the marriage seven years later in 1984, shortly after wrapping production on Return of the Jedi. Rather than apply for a divorce, they decided to try to make the marriage work. The two lived together and husbands for 12 years until in 1996, Ford filed for an annulment in order to marry Calista Flockhart. Hamill was said to have been heartbroken and dropped out of the public eye for quite some time.

Lucas admitted in an interview for Revenge of the Sith that the marriage had in fact been intentional, as he’d seen the way the two actors looked at each other but knew they’d never admit their feelings publicly. The director tried the same trick with Shia LaBeouf and a monkey on the set of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but admitted his error when the couple wouldn’t stop mating on set with what Lucas would later call, “Howls that will haunt my dreams forever.”