It’s well known that Mark Hamill had his desires for Luke Skywalker’s character heading into Return of The Jedi. I can remember watching the documentaries when the special editions were hitting theaters and seeing Hamill discuss his hopes to see Luke transform into some buff hero with scars and a mowhawk. Following his beatdown at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, you’d almost expect him to look a little worse for wear.
That didn’t happen, but it apparently didn’t stop Hamill from discussing Luke’s future bad ass qualities with George Lucas, something he recounted in a 2005 episode of IFC’s Dinner For Five according to The AV Club:
“As an actor that would be more fun to play. I just thought that’s the way it was going from when we finished [Empire]. I figured that’s what will be the pivotal moment. I’ll have to come back, but it will be I have Han Solo in my crosshairs and I’ll be about to kill him or about to kill the Princess or about to kill somebody that we care about. It’s an old cornball movie, like World War II movies.”
As they mention over at The AV Club, this is the sort of thing that happened in the Dark Empire series of comics — a series that’s no longer part of the canon, sadly. That doesn’t mean J.J. Abrams can’t pull from that. It also doesn’t mean that Skywalker is going to be some sort of evil force in the new series of films. There are plenty of rumors, though, and plenty of folks are questioning why Skywalker isn’t in the poster or in any of the trailers. One could speculate all day, but it’s a lot more fun to just watch all the rumors pile up and wait for the big reveal when the movie is released. Unless he turns out to be The Joker in disguise and we get some massive crossover. And then he turns out to be Robin.
(Via IFC / The AV Club)
