Fans surprised Harrison Ford with a standing ovation at the ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Comic-Con panel in San Diego on Friday evening.

“Is Harrison OK?” moderator Chris Hardwick asked before he introduced the recently injured actor. “Well, why don’t we see for ourselves?”

Comic-Con gave the 73-year-old actor a warm applause as the entire convention hall broke the event’s strict no-standing rule.

While Ford assured the audience that he is doing fine, he also became more articulate about his return to the film. Had he mulled over the possibilities of what had happened to his character Han Solo following the events in ‘Return of the Jedi’?

“No, because I never thought that it would come back to bless me rather than haunt me,” Ford said. “I was very gratified when I read the [new] script. I read something that I thought was really remarkable, really well-written, with some very intriguing developments and I was very happy to be a part of the story.”

Hardwick also asked actress Carrie Fisher about returning to the sci-fi franchise, which she has felt uncertain of in the past.

“I thought, ‘They were right about the acid flashbacks’. I didn’t think that it was going to happen again. I had to check and see if it was just me. It was a little bit like before,” the 58-year-old actress said of coming back to the film franchise with Ford, Mark Hamill and Peter Mayhew, “only we looked melted this time. But in a good way – kind of Force-melted.”

Gwendoline Christie, who plays villain Phasma, just had an hour between her appearance for ‘Game of Thrones’ and the ‘Star Wars’ panel, where her character is also tall, toughened and intimidating.

“I’ve found it exciting, not only that there was a female stormtrooper, but [for] the opportunity to explore a female character that is totally not about the way she looks in flesh,” Christie said. “…I was very excited that inside that armor was a woman.”

There were no new clips from ‘The Force Awakens,’ only a behind-the-scenes reel was shown, highlighting the non-computerized approach to making many of the clip’s special effects and locations.

Director J.J. Abrams and film producer Kathleen Kennedy responded to a question about diversity from a fan who pointed out that there were no Asian characters in the movie.

“I’m not in charge of casting for the next two films, but if I was, I would make all the characters Asian,” Abrams jokingly said.

He and Kennedy answered more seriously that they sought for a diverse cast for upcoming ‘Star Wars’ movies.

“We didn’t write the character of Finn to be any color”, Abrams said. “We didn’t write the character of Rey to be any color. We want our film to look the way the world looks.”

‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ is set to make its way to cinemas on Dec. 18, 2015.