As the final installment in the Sequel Trilogy looms closer, Star Wars: The Last Jedi remains a touchy subject online. And at the recent Star Wars Celebration, actor Tom Kane revealed that even he wasn’t completely thrilled with how his character was handled.
Taking over from the late Erik Bauersfeld, Kane provided the voice of Admiral Ackbar in Rian Johnson’s 2017 film. As you may recall, the death of the fan favorite was unusually downplayed, and is only briefly acknowledged in a line from Commander Larma D’Acy. Meanwhile, far more emphasis is placed on the demise of Vice Admiral Holdo, who saves the Resistance by ramming the Raddus into the Supremacy at lightspeed. And if you ask Kane, his character should’ve been the one to make the heroic sacrifice.
“I’ve been Ackbar for about six years… and I was not really thrilled about how they blew him out the side of the ship,” Kane told The Star Wars Show Live! “I’m like, ‘Who is this Holdo woman? Nobody knows her, no one’s invested in her — who is she? Why is she saving the fleet?’ If anyone was gonna save the fleet it’d be Ackbar [laughs].”
Obviously, this is all very subjective, though Kane isn’t the only member of the Last Jedi team to take issue with Ackbar’s death. In an interview with the Huffington Post back in January of last year, for instance, editor Bob Ducsay remarked that while the understated handling of Ackbar’s demise was “how it was designed,” the moment may have ultimately come across as “too incidental.”
In any case, though it looks like Star Wars: The Last Jedi was Ackbar’s final film, leaked promo art that emerged earlier this year seemed to indicate that The Rise of Skywalker will at least feature another member of the Mon Calamari species. And if last week’s trailer is anything to go by, then the upcoming film will also bring back quite a few Original Trilogy stars, from Lando Calrissian to Emperor Palpatine. We’ll find out who else is returning to the fray when the flick hits theaters on December 20th, 2019.