Rian Johnson Teases Luke’s Return To The Millenium Falcon In The Last Jedi

If Rian Johnson is working to maintain some semblance of mystery around Supreme Leader Snoke – word is The Last Jedi will answer most (but not all!) of our questions come December – then the sequel’s writer-director has adopted a similar approach to the great Luke Skywalker.

Mark Hamill’s all-powerful Force-user went into exile soon after the events of Jedi, and it was only when Daisy Ridley’s Rey touched down on Ahch-To that Star Wars fans caught a glimpse of Hamill’s jaded hero. And though he was initially taken aback by Johnson’s vision for the character, The Last Jedi is poised to introduce a “haunted” Luke who is essentially a shell of his former self. This is something that’ll apparently carry over into his return to the Millenium Falcon, too.

When asked by Entertainment Weekly how Luke will react once he’s back in the ship, Johnson explained that it’s a moment that will contain a lot of “melancholy” for the Jedi Master, as the vehicle is “just filled with ghosts for Luke.” Ghosts that surely have something to do with Ben Solo’s turn to the Dark Side.

But if Luke’s experience aboard the ship will be one of darkness and haunted memories, Hamill’s own return to the iconic vessel was completely different, as he told EW the following when they quizzed him on what it was like being back in the Falcon.

“I’m telling you, I didn’t expect to have the reaction I had. I was there with my family, with [my children] Nathan and Griffin and Chelsea and my wife Marilou, and [Lucasfilm] asked if the documentary crew could be there when I came back on the Millennium Falcon. I mean, this was not on the shooting day. I was just street clothes and going to visit that set. And I said, ‘Sure.’ It was sort of like visiting an old house that you lived in when you were a kid. I mean, I just welled up with emotion and I said, ‘I need to be by myself.’

All of this, happening to me again was… it’s hard to put into words,” Hamill says. “I figured when the prequels came out, plus a few years, people would forget about us. But it never really went away. People have these stories they tell you, you know, about how [Star Wars] helped them through hard times. Or they met their wife in line for this [movie], and were married by that one, and had a child by that one.”

The Skywalker saga continues this December with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and if those early reports hold true, it’ll seemingly end with a major cliffhanger in anticipation of the J.J. Abrams-directed Episode IX. So not unlike Empire Strikes Back, then.