When Return of the Jedi came out in 1983, Mark Hamill thought he was done with the character of Luke Skywalker and the Star Wars franchise as a whole. It was naturally a big decision for him, then, to jump back into the saddle over thirty years later when he was approached to play a part in the sequel trilogy, beginning with 2015’s The Force Awakens.
Though he was hesitant to return at first, Hamill eventually came to see the original trilogy as just one half of the story, with much more about Luke’s life still to be told. Here’s how he put it to ABC News:
“A thing that felt maybe wrong about coming back was the fact that the original trilogy had a beginning, a middle and an end. But there’s two ways of looking at that. On the one hand, it had closure. But if you look at it another way, it’s the story of how Luke went from becoming a farm boy to a Jedi and then the story ends. It would be like telling the story of how James Bond got his license to kill and became 007, and the story ends.”
Hamill’s way of thinking of it is very convincing. You wouldn’t end James Bond’s story before you’ve seen him become a fully-fledged secret agent, right? Likewise, it makes sense to check in on an older Luke once he’s become a Jedi master.
In The Last Jedi, we’ll finally get to find out what happened to the former Tatooine farm boy after bringing down the Empire. Of course, things have not gone well for young Skywalker since then. His nephew Kylo Ren betrayed him and murdered the next generation of Jedi, causing Luke to remove himself from his friends and family and live the life of a hermit on Ahch-To. Hamill has spoken in the past about how this particular turn of events was a lot to take in, although he’s since come around to accepting the shocking bit of character development.
We’ll finally get to see whether Mark Hamill’s return to the franchise was worth it when Star Wars: The Last Jedi arrives in cinemas on December 15th.
