If you’re a discerning and intelligent cinemagoer, you’ll have recognized the scene where Luke Skywalker milks a big ol’ alien titty and gulps down its suspiciously colored milk as one of the finest moments of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. One of Rian Johnson’s most successful tactics in the film was to demolish the idea of Luke as some invincible hero and rub our faces in the grubby reality of his miserable life.
This involved chugging down gross-looking liquids, hauling gigantic fish across cliff-sides and spending his time huddled in a stone-age hovel on a grey, rainy island dealing with an infestation of Porgs. Of course, all this was in service of eventually revealing the glowing hero of the Original Trilogy in that amazing Force-projection climax in which Luke appears to stand alone against the might of the First Order.
So, it’s a little annoying that Mark Hamill apparently isn’t down with the milking scene, saying the following in a recent interview to promote the home video release of The Last Jedi:
“They had time for me to milk that big alien but to show any human emotion? Nah, we don’t have time for that. But again it’s not my call.”
The ‘human emotion’ Hamill refers to here comes in a deleted a scene in which Luke reacts to the death of Han Solo in The Force Awakens. Continuing on, he described why that scene would have been important.
“[It showed that] Luke was putting on a facade in front of Rey and even Chewie, that he was embittered and sort of a broken man. And I think the fact that he could let his emotions out when he was by himself would have made an impact on the audience because it allowed them to grieve the loss of Han Solo just the way Luke felt it.”
It sounds like a touching moment for Luke, and one that I would have liked to have seen in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. But at the expense of the milking scene? Man, that’s some Sophie’s choice type decision right there!