The two ‘Star Wars’ scenes Mark Hamill wishes hadn’t been cut
If you’re of a certain age, or you just really enjoy sci-fi movies, then the likelihood is you can probably list every scene from Star Wars, almost in order, from Darth Vader invading Princess Leia’s ship to the rebel alliance triumphantly getting medals and everyone laughing at the noise Chewbacca makes. Mark Hamill was in almost every scene as Luke Skywalker, but that doesn’t mean he’s 100% happy with the cult movie.
Looking back at Star Wars now as a grown-up (sort of) and a film fan, you can appreciate just what a masterpiece it is. George Lucas somehow made special effects that still look as good almost 50 years later, every character is cast perfectly and is singularly iconic, from Skywalker to Han Solo to Chewie to R2D2, such that, had they been anything or anyone else, it wouldn’t have seemed right.
The cinematic techniques involved are revolutionary, with the influences on Lucas clear to see: World War 2 movie action sequences, Kurosawa’s screen wipes and landscape vistas, the epic stories of The Lord of the Rings mashed together with Flash Gordon, and then of course there’s the music of John Williams coming off the back of Jaws to produce a score for the ages.
Hamill was superb as the film’s hero, his first major role and one that he really struggled to ever move past, but then does that matter when you have played a character that will live in cinema history and be watched for generations to come, and, most importantly, made it your own?
Of course, he reprised the role two more times, with 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi three years later, and now, well into his 70s, Hamill is still asked consistently about the films and about Skywalker, and in an appearance on the Russo brothers’ film podcast he reflected on the choices his director made in the trilogy and the scenes he wished had been left in the final cut.
In Return of the Jedi, for instance, Skywalker was originally to have been seen assembling a new, green lightsaber in a cave before taking it to go and rescue his friend Solo from Jabba the Hutt, but that was cut from the film altogether.
And while Hamill understood Lucas making the change, he still laments one moment from the 1977 original also being chopped, which sounds incredibly cool and featured Skywalker looking up from the desert to see the battle in space between Vader’s force and the rebels, and then heading off to tell his friends what he’d seen.
Hamill said, “There are a couple of things that are good for the character. Number one, he is ridiculed roundly by his peers. So he’s not particularly cool or popular. In the final assault on the Death Star, we’re getting picked off left and right… But the thing that motivates me to turn off the targeting device and rely completely on the Force is the death of [fellow rebel pilot] Biggs Darklighter. It was later that they decided to dub in Obi-Wan’s voice saying, ‘Luke, use the Force’, and that’s when he decides.”
Hamill returned to the Star Wars world for The Last Jedi several decades later, in a 2017 film that was a hit with critics, but not so much with the loyal fanbase.
