With the upcoming Star Wars: Episode IX, Mark Hamill is set to finally end his run in the Star Wars franchise, and in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Luke Skywalker actor was tasked with picking his favorite installment from the entire saga.
Over the decades, the series has seen its share of divisive entries. Mentioning The Last Jedi online, for example, is an excellent way to start an argument, while the Prequel Trilogy continues to draw ridicule to this day. But after claiming to having some affection for all of the films, Hamill went for what just might be the least controversial answer possible.
“It’s like, pick your favorite child. You like them all for different reasons,” Hamill said. “I guess I’d have to go with Empire [Strikes Back], only because it was so unexpected to have the protagonist be so soundly defeated. Losing the hand and the dad Vader, all of it was pretty unexpected. And it was much more cerebral. Yoda is such an important addition to the mythology and I thought it was so clever of George, the concept of the Force, so you can talk about religion and spirituality without making everyone uncomfortable. So, for that alone.”
While A New Hope was the one that started it all, there’s no denying that The Empire Strikes Back did a huge amount to enrich the mythology of the series, while influencing countless other blockbusters in the process.
Of course, while Hamill may like all the Star Wars movies, he still has a few criticisms of the films and the way they’ve been handled. In an interview last month with Den of Geek, for instance, the actor recalled telling Lucasfilm that it was “a big mistake” to kill off Han Solo in The Force Awakens, since this prevented a Han, Luke and Leia reunion from ever happening. And in the aforementioned THR interview, Hamill admitted to feeling some “Star Wars fatigue” due to the Disney’s packed release schedule.
But while the franchise’s future looks even busier than its past, it’s expected that Hamill will be hanging up the saber after Star Wars: Episode IX hits theaters on December 20th, 2019.
