Mark Hamill has given new Star Wars boss Dave Filoni the thumbs up, having expressed his dissatisfaction with some of the decisions around his character, Luke Skywalker, in recent movies.
Hamill has repeatedly commented on the fate of Luke Skywalker, most recently in December last year, when he questioned Skywalker’s death in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, insisting that if “an overdose of the Force” had been a real risk, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda should have warned him.
Hamill’s legendary character passed away during The Last Jedi’s climax after expending the last of his life energy on a Force projection of himself, which served as a distraction for Kylo Ren while the Resistance made their escape.
Similarly, Hamill has made no secret of his disagreement with Luke’s on-screen motivations for exiling himself and becoming the hermit Rey meets in The Last Jedi. As Skywalker explains in the movie, he blames himself for Ben Solo turning to the Dark side of the Force, which drives him to quit the Jedi. When Rey tracks Luke down in a bid to recruit him into the Resistance, he refuses.
In June last year, Hamill was asked about how uncomfortable he was when he found out Luke had exiled himself in The Last Jedi. Hamill’s response started with him insisting he’s a big fan of Rian Johnson, and indeed thinks he made “a great movie.”
“Here’s the thing, and I’d love to clear this up: Rian Johnson is one of the most gifted directors I’ve ever worked with,” Hamill said. “He’s amiable, he’s fun on set, he’s smart. He made a great movie. I think the staging of the stand-off between Kylo Ren, Adam Driver and I at the end, is so well staged. The foreshadowing that I’m not really there. Adam wipes the snow away and you see the red planet beneath, I wipe the snow and it’s just snow. That’s so subtle. I love Knives Out and Brick and Looper. He’s one of my favorite directors.
“And the fact that I went public with my dissatisfaction with the motivation for Luke becoming a suicidal hermit might have colored things in a way that, maybe I should have kept that to myself. But I kept saying to Rian, ‘This would just make Luke double down even…’ and he said, ‘Well, your class at the Jedi Academy were wiped out.’”
This is in reference to the scene in which a young Ben Solo brings a building down on Luke Skywalker, tears a Jedi temple apart and murders his students before running away to eventually become Kylo Ren.
“I said, ‘Rian, I saw entire planets wiped out! If anything, Luke doubles down and hardens his resolve in the face of adversity.’ So that’s all,” Hamill explained.
“I said, ‘Can I make up my own backstory of why he is the way he is? I don’t want to just say that I have bumped my head and I have brain damage.’ He said, ‘Yeah, do whatever you want.’ So I made up a much, much darker backstory that I thought could justify him being that way.”
Then, in September last year, Hamill revealed he was initially reluctant to return as Luke, believing that Disney would be unable to “catch lightning in a bottle twice.” But he was convinced to sign on because Han Solo actor Harrison Ford had done so.
Every Upcoming Star Wars Movie and TV Show
Even Star Wars creator George Lucas has suggested Lucasfilm got a lot wrong with the Sequel Trilogy. Speaking in 2024, Lucas said: “I was the one who really knew what Star Wars was… who actually knew this world, because there’s a lot to it. The Force, for example, nobody understood the Force. When they started other ones after I sold the company, a lot of the ideas that were in [the original] sort of got lost. But that’s the way it is. You give it up, you give it up.”
So, with outgoing Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy replaced by Filoni and Lynwen Brennan as co-presidents, and with the Filoni-directed The Mandalorian and Grogu set to kick off a new era of Star Wars, Hamill told USA Today he “can’t think of better hands” for the franchise than Filoni, insisting he understands the franchise “so well.”
“George was a mentor to Dave, so he knows George’s sensibility,” Hamill added. He’s apparently been impressed by the “great stuff” Filoni has worked on in the Star Wars universe, including The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. (That first one, I’m right with you Mark, but The Book of Boba Fett? Not so sure about that one.)
Dave Filoni is in charge of Star Wars’ new era. Photo by Christopher Jue/Getty Images for Disney.
But is this now a moment for Hamill to reprise his role as Luke Skywalker in live-action form? It seems unlikely. In June last year, Hamill ruled out playing Luke again, even as a Force ghost — after all, Luke left his robes behind in The Last Jedi.
The Mandalorian And Grogu, due out on May 22, is one of only two Star Wars movies with confirmed release dates (Ryan Gosling’s Star Wars: Starfighter arrives on May 28, 2027). While there is a long list of Star Wars movies announced, there is significant doubt that many of them, if any, will actually be released.
Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for IMDb.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.