Mark Hamill Hints That Luke Only Has A Small Cameo In Star Wars: Episode IX

Star Wars: Episode IX has long been touted as the final installment in the Skywalker Saga, which makes it a little strange that not one surviving character in the series actually bears the Skywalker name. And while Mark Hamill is already confirmed to be reprising his role as Luke for J.J. Abrams’ trilogy-closer, recent comments from the actor have got the fans wondering whether his involvement will amount to much more than a glorified cameo.

In an interview with Den of Geek, Hamill wasn’t shy about sharing a few criticisms of Lucasfilm’s recent output, from Disney’s decision to release Solo: A Star Wars Story mere months after The Last Jedi, to the death of Han Solo in The Force Awakens. And speaking of classic characters meeting their demise, Hamill also seemed a little upset that Luke won’t live to see the end of the Sequel Trilogy:

“I thought: oh, okay, you should push my death off to the last one. That’s what I was hoping when I came back: no cameos and a run-of-the-trilogy contract. Did I get any of those things? Because as far as I’m concerned, the end of VII is really the beginning of VIII. I got one movie! They totally hornswoggled me.’”

Seeing how Hamill has presumably filmed his Episode IX scenes by now, it may be significant that he feels he only got “one movie” in the latest trilogy, implying that his screen time in Luke’s final film might be pretty limited.

To some extent, you still have to question whether Lucasfilm would really announce Hamill’s involvement in the movie well over a year in advance if a Force Ghost cameo was all they had in mind. After all, there’s a reason why Yoda and Maul’s respective scenes in The Last Jedi and Solo were saved as big surprises. But at the same time, with Episode IX likely to keep the focus of the drama on relative newcomers like Rey and Kylo, surely there’s only so much that flashbacks and Force Ghost sequences can do to keep a dead character in the action.

Either way, we’ll see just how much of Luke’s story is still left to be told when Star Wars: Episode IX hits theaters on December 20th, 2019.