J.J. Abrams Reveals Harrison Ford's 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Injury Actually Saved the Movie

J.J. Abrams, the poor guy, has been battling relentless Star Wars inquiries for years now. Now that The Force Awakens has had enough time to truly seep into the pores of both fans and detractors (what's wrong with you?) alike, Abrams is opening up even more about the behind-the-scenes struggles of reviving a franchise that's practically the Holy Bible of American pop culture. One previously unknown fact? Harrison Ford's on-set injury may have saved the whole movie.

"When I was on the set of the Millennium Falcon and we started to do work with Rey and Finn, the first time we did it, it didn't work at all," Abrams said during a recent Tribeca Film Festival panel, according toIGN. "It was much more contentious. I didn't direct it right. It was set up all wrong, and when Harrison Ford got injured—which was a very scary day—we ended up having a few weeks off, and it was during that time that I really got to look at what we had done and rewrite quite a bit of that relationship."

According to Abrams, Ford's ankle injury forced him to come back and reshoot "from the ground up." Ford's injury, conveniently enough, ultimately proved the spark Abrams needed to revisit a crucial component of The Force Awakens that was in dire need of a fresh approach: "It was an amazingly helpful thing to get these two characters to where they needed to be."

Ford, a man also known for randomly showing up for televised interviews while dressed as a hot dog, demonstrated the injury to Jimmy Fallon back in December using a Han Solo action figure. Judging by the post-demonstration appearance of the action figure, that shit probably really hurt: