For all of its financial success, Star Wars: The Last Jedi has become quite a controversial offering from Lucasfilm. As everyone knows, it saw the long-awaited return of Luke Skywalker, which came two years after his famously silent cameo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In the story, this occurs roughly three decades after his victory in Return of the Jedi.
Yet, there’s been a strong backlash against The Last Jedi. Many enthusiasts have even asked for the film to be struck from the canon, with a large portion of the anger stemming from Luke’s characterization as a disillusioned and downtrodden Jedi, which fans have decried as too different from his younger self.
It’s not only viewers who have issues with it though, as even Hamill himself was taken aback and somewhat uncomfortable about the direction that Rian Johnson took the iconic character in, saying the following back in October:
“That’s the hard part. You don’t want to admit how possessive you’ve become. There are times where you go, ‘Really? That’s what they think of Luke? I’m not only in disagreement – I’m insulted.’ But that’s the process and you thrash it all out.”
Of course, he’s since gone on the record to admit that he was wrong and regrets airing his doubts and fears in public, but it turns out that it wasn’t only Episode VIII that gave Hamill some second thoughts, as he also had issues with the script for Return of the Jedi when he first read it.
Speaking at a recent panel during the ongoing SXSW, the actor said:
I read [the script for] Jedi and thought, ‘Wait a sec! I thought I was heading toward the struggle of heading to the Dark Side. I’m in black. I have a glove. I see a trend here.’
It’s interesting to hear that Hamill doubted George Lucas’ vision all those years ago just as he initially doubted Johnson’s, but if nothing else, it just goes to show how much he really cares about the character and where Luke’s story goes. In fact, it was only the other week when the actor revealed that he’s not ready to say goodbye to the iconic hero just yet, telling us:
“I refuse to believe that he’s gone. My theory is he just teleported to somewhere else and left his robe behind. He teleported to a nudist colony, that’s what I’m hoping.”
While we can’t see Hamill’s suggested nudist colony escape plan becoming canon anytime soon, we suspect there’s a good chance the character could return in some form in Episode IX. Potentially in a flashback to his training of Kylo Ren at the Jedi Academy but most likely as a Force ghost. After all, TLJ director Rian Johnson has already explained that he thought his decision opened up “more possibilities” for what his successor J.J. Abrams could do with Luke in the next movie.
It’ll be a while yet before we learn whether or not we’ll ever see Hamill’s character again, but in the meantime, you can relive Luke’s final (?) moments when Star Wars: The Last Jedi arrives on Digital HD on March 13th and on Blu-ray March 27th.