To this day, Rian Johnson’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” remains the most contentious film of the Disney “Star Wars” era. Some adore it, others despise it. For many it was the film that split the fandom in a way even the reception to ‘The Phantom Menace’ didn’t.
Fueling the arguments were comments from some of the stars, such as John Boyega and Mark Hamill, who had issues with certain filmmaking choices. Hamill’s comments in particular spread far and wide, suggesting his Luke Skywalker in the film was “not true to that of the original character”.
Hamill has subsequently indicated he regretted going public with those comments and recently appeared on NPR’s Bullseye with Jesse Thorn podcast where he revealed some of the reasoning behind the creative differences he had over his character with Johnson.
He first starts out praising Johnson, saying he’s “one of the most gifted directors I’ve ever worked with” and praising the staging of “The Last Jedi”, before going on to discuss his comments:
“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.
I kept saying to Rian this would just make Luke double down… he said ‘Well your whole class at the Jedi Academy were wiped out.’ I said ‘Rian, I saw entire planets wiped out. If anything Luke doubles down and it hardens his resolve in the face of uh adversity.” So that’s all.
I [then] said “Can I make up my own backstory of why he is the way he is? O don’t want to just say that you know 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 uh backstory that I thought could justify him being that way.”
So what was that backstory? Turns out it was one much darker than what we saw in the film, and definitely not something you really see in a film for kids:
“I thought, what could make someone give up a devotion to what is basically a religious entity, to give up being a Jedi. Well, the love of a woman. So he falls in love with a woman.
He gives up being a Jedi. They have a child together. At some point the child, as a toddler, picks up an unattended lightsaber, pushes the button and is killed instantly. The wife is so full of grief, she kills herself.
…I thought that resonated with me so deeply…. but he didn’t have the time to tell a backstory like that I’m guessing, he just wanted a brief thing to explain it and to me it didn’t justify it.
That said and, I told him this, despite the fact that I disagree with your choices for Luke I’m going to do everything within my power to make your screenplay work as best that I can. The only thing unfortunate about that is I’ve heard comments from fans who think that I somehow dislike Rian Johnson and nothing could be further from the truth.”
Head to the NPR Bullseye YouTube Channel and jump to around the 32 minute mark to hear Hamill’s comments in his own words.
The remarks follow on from several made the other week where Hamill indicated he is officially done playing Luke Skywalker in the franchise – no more cameos or anything like that.
