Mark Hamill Reveals How He Really Feels About Controversial Star Wars Film The Last Jedi
Mark originated the role of Luke Skywalker in the first Star Wars trilogy, returning for the sequels in the latest instalments, which were released over the course of the 2010s.
However, it's fair to say that The Last Jedi, the eighth film in the so-called 'Skywalker saga', has gone on to become one of the most divisive in Star Wars history, partly due to – among other things – huge changes made to Mark's character.
While promoting the film, Mark admitted he had a hard time getting to grips with his character's new dark outlook on life, claiming in 2017 that he'd tried to tell director Rian Johnson: 'Jedis don't give up. I mean, even if he had a problem, he would maybe take a year to try and regroup, but if he made a mistake he would try and right that wrong.'
'Right there, we had a fundamental difference,' Mark told Spain's SensaCine. 'But, it's not my story anymore. It's somebody else's story, and Rian needed me to be a certain way to make the ending effective.'
'I almost had to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he's Jake Skywalker – he's not my Luke Skywalker,' he added, concluding that he 'still [hasn't] accepted it completely'.
Mark was asked about these comments recently during an appearance on Jesse Thorn's podcast Bullseye, admitting he wished he'd 'kept that to myself' and insisting that he thinks The Last Jedi is 'a great movie'.
'Rian Johnson is one of the most gifted directors I've ever worked with,' he explained. 'The fact that I went public with my dissatisfaction with the motivation for Luke becoming a suicidal hermit might have coloured things in a way that, maybe, I should have kept that to myself.'
The Disney Legends recipient went on to share that to get his head around his character's new attitude, he came up with an elaborate backstory that would justify why Luke Skywalker had changed so much.
'I thought, 'What could make someone give up a devotion to what is basically a religious entity, to give up being a Jedi?' Well, the love of a woman,' Mark explained, before revealing this backstory involved Mark falling in love and having a child, who died as a toddler in an accident involving an unattended lightsaber.
He claimed: 'I hear these horrible stories about these children who find unattended guns and wind up dead. That resonated with me so deeply.'
While Rian Johnson seemingly 'didn't have the time to tell a backstory like that', Mark said he still kept the idea – which resulted in Luke's grief-stricken partner taking her own life – in his head while shooting The Last Jedi.
The latest Star Wars trilogy concluded with the film The Rise Of Skywalker, which also featured a surprise appearance from Harrison Ford as Han Solo.
Although the movie was shot long after Carrie Fisher's death, she also appeared as General Leia in Star Wars through the use of unseen footage from The Force Awakens. Carrie's daughter Billie Lourd also played Leia in one flashback sequence.
Listen to Mark Hamill's full interview on Bullseye with Jesse Thorn.
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