It hasn’t gone unnoticed that Luke Skywalker has been absent in the promotion for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Not just in the recent trailer that landed, but in the promo posters and behind-the-scenes stills as well. This has us all very excited about what this means for the character that made Mark Hamill a household name, with footage resurfacing of the man himself saying he pitched the idea of an evil Luke Skywalker.
The clip from a 2005 episode of the chatshow Dinner For Five is part of an episode featuring Hamill, as well as Force Awakens director JJ Abrams, Jason Lee, Kevin Smith and Stan Lee. The premise of the show was that a group of film makers and actors sit down and talk shop over dinner.
In the episode, Hamill says the notion of the character turning to the Dark Side was pitched to series’ creator George Lucas as an idea for Return of the Jedi in 1983.
His reasoning is simple, saying “As an actor that would be more fun to play.” Telling host Smith that “I just thought that’s the way it was going… I’ll have to come back, but it will be Han Solo in my cross-hairs, and I’ll be about to kill him or about to kill the Princess or about to kill somebody that we care about.”
What makes this interesting is that the episode was filmed long before Abrams was attached to The Force Awakens, even long before the notion of a new trilogy was kicked around (this was 2005, the year that Revenge of the Sith was released).
So had this conversation sparked something in Abrams? It would certainly be a shocking revelation for long-time Star Wars fans if Luke was to jump ship; a revelation that could well have been brewing in Abrams’ mind all this time.
We have to add that Hamill is not he record as saying that George Lucas had told him while making A New Hope that in 30 years he’d be back as the Obi-Wan character.
It’s fun to speculate, isn’t it?
The video is below, it kicks off around the 12 minute mark
Source: Squareeyed.tv
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