For the past year, Mark Hamill has taken pleasure in telling us nothing about the upcoming Star Wars: Episode IX, with the star regularly taking to social media to troll his followers with fake trailer drops and title reveals. Nonetheless, in the actor’s recent Instagram activity, a minor detail on J.J. Abrams’ upcoming trilogy-closer just might be written all over his face.
Earlier this week, Hamill shared a collection of photos from his recent trip to see a production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. But the small detail in these pictures that’s got Star Wars fans talking is the actor’s lack of a beard, leading some to suspect that Luke won’t be keeping his Last Jedi facial hair in the sequel.
Timing-wise, there’s a certain logic to this theory, in that Hamill mentioned in the first half of December that he still has to film his scenes for Episode IX, and from the look of things, he isn’t ready to bring back the Skywalker beard anytime soon. What’s more, if Luke’s role in this next film involves any flashback sequences, then you can imagine Abrams would want the character clean-shaven as a clear visual marker that we’re witnessing the Jedi in his pre-hermit days.
Of course, it’s also possible that Luke is only set to appear in Force Ghost form, but even then, the famously nostalgic Abrams may want the character to go for the classic, beardless look for what might well be his final big screen outing.
In any case, the state of Luke’s facial hair, or lack thereof, is hardly the most important matter to be resolved by Star Wars: Episoide IX, but we’ll get our answer nonetheless when the film hits theaters on December 20th, 2019.
Published: Jan 9, 2019 01:33 pm