Privately he referred to the movie as "fairy tale rubbish." He also claimed in a 1999 interview that it was his idea to have Obi Wan Kenobi die in A New Hope mainly because he couldn't handle any more of George Lucas' awful dialogue.

Also one time he was approached by a young boy who was a huge Star Wars fanatic and wanted his autograph. The boy told Guinness that he had seen Star Wars over 100 times. Guinness reluctantly agreed to give him his autograph, but only if the boy promised to never watch Star Wars again. The kid burst into tears and his mom got really upset and told him that was a terrible thing to say to a child. Guinness didn't regret it though. Pretty funny.

It got to a point where he wouldn't even open fan mail from Star Wars fans, and would simply throw it away.

The one thing he did like about Star Wars was all the royalties it brought him which enabled him to have a comfortable retirement and never again work on a movie that didn't appeal to him.