During a 1978 episode of "The Tonight Show," Carl Sagan sat down with legendary host Johnny Carson to discuss various topics, most of them related to science. As "A New Hope" had just come out a year earlier and become a huge hit with viewers, it was inevitable that the two men eventually touched on the film. At that point, Sagan made the rather accurate observation (via YouTube) that the cast of "Star Wars" — or at least the cast members playing humans — was "all white."
"The skin of all the humans in Star Wars, oddly enough, is sort of like this [looking down at his hands], and not even the other colors represented on the Earth, much less greens and blues and purples and oranges," Sagan added, doubling down on his earlier comments.
After Carson, who seemingly didn't know how to respond at first, explained that "Star Wars" also features aliens who look different from each other, Sagan noted that none of them "seemed to be in charge of the galaxy." While the famed scientist eventually acknowledged that the child in him still appreciated the movie, for the most part, he also called out the "human chauvinism" that was supposedly present, as well as what he felt was a lack of scientific accuracy. It was only then that the audience really broke out of its momentary, yet awkward silence and started laughing along with Sagan's observations and Carson's reactions to them.
