After forty years you’d think Star Wars fans would have pored over every millimeter of The Empire Strikes Back, but it seems that there are still more revelations to be had. A Mark Hamill fan account recently posted a behind-the-scenes photo taken during the Wampa ice cave scene early on in the movie, in which Luke Skywalker’s feet are encased in ice and he’s dangling upside down from the ceiling.
The images show two crew members supporting Hamill, with the caption joking that it’s nice to see that they had his back. Hamill responded, revealing that this was a practical consideration to save money:
Even after all this time I still love hearing stories from the set of the Original Trilogy. Some of the coolest come in the documentary From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga, which is available in full on the official Star Wars site. Highlights are Hamill and Carrie Fisher lounging against the rubber Jabba puppet and discussing stunts (apparently a Gamorrean falling on you is very hazardous) and Hamill, Fisher, and Harrison Ford debating how to deliver a line during the Ewok village shoot.
It’s as yet unknown if Hamill is done with Star Wars. At first, it seemed his ghostly appearance in The Rise of Skywalker would be his swansong, but he surprised everyone by returning as a digitally de-aged Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian. Since then, there’ve been rumors of a show focusing on Luke’s doomed Jedi Academy, but no confirmation whether it’ll happen. Even so, The Mandalorian‘s third season is likely to feature Luke in some capacity, even if just in a very brief scene to hand Grogu back to Din Djarin.
In the meantime, Hamill remains among the most interesting celebrity Twitter accounts to follow, particularly if you want some cool insight into what it took to make Star Wars into the behemoth it is today.
