While the folks over at Disney are still moving ahead as scheduled, it looks as if 71 year old Harrison Ford will need to miss up to eight weeks of filming for ‘Star Wars: Episode VII‘ to heal from his recent injury on set.

I’m pretty sure that once the official cast for the film was announced the very last of the original actors that any of us were worried about was Mr. Ford. For those who may have missed it, last Thursday Harrison Ford was injured on set while filming on the Millennium Falcon and was rushed to a nearby hospital. While rumors of a pelvic injury spread like wild fire over the Internet (shocking, I know) the official announcement was that it was a broken ankle. While no one wishes a broken ankle on anyone, thankfully that was all that happened.

His wife Calista Flockhart will be flying to the UK to be at his side and help him through the process. While he is getting better the entire shoot is going to be rescheduled as much as possible to accommodate his recovery time. Rumors are also flying that they may still shoot some of  his scenes as scheduled, at least any that won’t require him to be standing for long periods of time. Still, with two months of a delay on any shots that he should be in and the film due in December of 2015, there isn’t that much time to get the entire thing shot to send it to post production. Sure, Lucasfilm clearly knows how to handle the look of ‘Star Wars’ as they’ve been doing it since the beginning but with the deadline being what it is and expectations at an all time high, there is clearly room for concern here.

According to a source apparently close to the film:

“The initial day or two after the accident it was hard to move things around but now we have had more time we can juggle things, bring some scenes forward and push others back. There are lots of other actors in the movie so it is not a disaster. We are still confident the film can stay on schedule.

At the moment it looks like Harrison is going to be off set for 6-8 weeks but the main priority is making sure he is OK.”

I have a feeling he won’t be doing any of his own stunts in the next Indiana Jones movie if this is any indication. Kidding aside, all of us here at ScienceFiction.com truly hope for a speedy recovery for one of the most iconic faces in genre films of all time. From ‘Blade Runner‘ to ‘Indiana Jones’ to ‘Star Wars’ to ‘Ender’s Game,’ Ford has always been able to lead a commanding performance on screen. Hopefully he is okay and the dreamer in me who grew up with this man as a central hero in all of my favorite films hopes he still has the starring role in this one that he deserves with no edits to the script lowering his screen time.

What are your thoughts on Ford’s injury? Do you think it will impede the upcoming release of ‘Star Wars’ and his role in it or will they fully work around his recovery time?

‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ blasts off into theaters on December 18, 2015.

Source: Mirror