Mark Hamill reveals George Lucas’ original plan for Luke and Leia and talks about the death of Han Solo

Ok, so we here at FTN HQ we’re sort of split over The Last Jedi… some of us loved it, some hated it and others are still not sure what happened.

However, being the fans we are, one thing that we’ve always wondered was what exactly George Lucas had planned for Luke and Leia in his original third trilogy.

And now, while not exactly concise, Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, has revealed what the plan was for the two core characters: “I happen to know that George didn’t kill Luke until the end of [Episode] 9, after he trained Leia. Which is another thread that was never played upon [in The Last Jedi].”

While Luke was killed in The Last Jedi we’re confident he’ll  pop us as a Force Ghost in the next Episode (although Hamill insists no-one has talked to him about it) we’re confident that the plan WAS to focus on Leia’s Force abilities in the next movie… after all, they were explored in TLJ (when, you know, she flew through space) but sadly, with Carrie Fisher’s death, we may never know what the plan for Leia was going to be.

Still, it would have been nice to see the brother and sister train together in this trilogy.

Another issue we had (see here) with The Last Jedi was that there was a scene filmed that had Luke react to Han’s death – he didn’t take it well – and also Leia’s dealing with the news, however it never made the final cut. And it looks like Hamill’s not impressed either: “[Would I have liked it in the movie?] Yes, of course because it shows Luke was putting on a facade in front of Rey and even Chewie, that he was embittered and sort of a broken man. And I think the fact that he could let his emotions out when he was by himself would have made an impact on the audience because it allowed them to grieve the loss of Han Solo just the way Luke felt it.

“But that always happens in films. You say, ‘Oh, what about this scene where this happens or that happens?” because you want to give the fullest experience that you can. And like you say, it was brief enough that I was — [chuckles] They had time for me to milk that big alien but to show any human emotion? Nah, we don’t have time for that. But again it’s not my call.”

We understand his desire to be diplomatic here but we have to say, there’s scenes in the movie – like the ‘milk’ scene – that could have went and left us with a more emotional connection to the characters. But hey, what do we know?