A secondary but iconic character of the Star Wars galaxy, Admiral Ackbar makes his appearance in Return of the Jedi. His actor refused to comply with a specific request from his director for the end of the film, which made him angry…
Endearing and fan-loved humanoid squid (not to mention the cult meme “It’s a trap!”), a secondary but important character in the Star Wars galaxy, Admiral Ackbar made his screen appearance in 1983 in the film Return of the Jedi. He was then played by Timothy Rose, while his voice was that of Erik Bauersfeld.
Both reprized their roles for the movie Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens in 2015. In 2017, Tom Kane voiced the character in the movie Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, after the death of Erik Bauersfeld.
It has also been seen in the animated series The Clone Wars, not to mention the fact that it also appears in novels of the Star Wars extended universe, through video games and comics. In short, a character that has become iconic.
In Return of the Jedi, it is he, as the leader of the rebel fleet, who coordinates the forces with Lando Calrissian, to win the final battle of Endor. The film ends with the destruction of the second Death Star, and the celebration, throughout the galaxy, of victory against the Empire.
Rose resisted a request from the film’s director, Richard Marquand, who wanted his character and his congeners from the planet Mon Calamari to start dancing in the command ship. After all, it wasn’t just the Ewoks who could party.
Lucasfilm Ltd.
The actor actually thought Ackbard would celebrate it in a more sober, if not more solemn way. He therefore refused to comply with the request of the director, as he explained during an interview in 2019 :
“I’ve been to less than 200 numbers [par tirage au sort] to be mobilized for Vietnam. I had very strong ideas about the war at the time. I think it’s something to be proud of [NDR : son engagement], but that’s not something to celebrate. There is a big difference. So in the last scene of Akbar, they put the camera on him… I thought about our people who died, their people who died, and the weight made me fall on the chair.
And [le réalisateur Marquand] got really mad and he said, ‘Okay, we’re going to do this again and this time you get up and dance’. I said, ‘If you want Akbar to dance, you can put someone else in the costume. You have my performance. And they left him in.”
You can find the (very short) sequence in the video below, around 02”29. It’s true that it’s more elegant than dancing the caterpillar in the ship…