Mark Hamill Reveals the One Rule of the Classic 'Star Wars' Movies
In 1983, when Return of the Jedi hit theaters, some fans worried that Han Solo or Luke Skywalker might die. But, as Mark Hamill revealed on a recent appearance on The Today Show, killing off the main characters was never on the table back in the good old days.
While promoting his new film, The Life of Chuck, Hamill reflected on when he would complain to George Lucas about pushing the story of Star Wars into a darker, more mature direction. He even revealed that he told Lucas that he wanted Luke to descend further into darkness in the third film in 1983.
"In the third one, I said [to Lucas]: 'Luke has lost his hand, he's got the black glove...shouldn't it be about Luke struggling with turning to the Dark Side?'" But Hamill revealed that Lucas had a very specific concept in mind for the original Star Wars trilogy that did
"George Lucas said: 'Mark, it's for children.' That’s why he never considered killing any of the main characters. In the new ones, you know, they pop us off one at a time!"
Hamill was referring, of course, to the collective deaths of Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Luke Skywalker (himself) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), as depicted on screen in the films The Force Awakens (2015), The Last Jedi (2017), and The Rise of Skywalker (2019), respectively.
While fans generally embraced the tragic end of Han Solo in 2015, the subsequent offings of Luke and Leia created mixed results among the general public. While Fisher of course really passed away in real life in 2016, the deaths of Luke and Leia in the films continues to create intense debate online.
Lately, newer Star Wars TV series have gone all-in on killing off main characters. Hamill wasn't saying that this is a good or bad thing, to be clear. And, it should be noted that Lucas himself made 2005's Revenge of the Sith, surely, one of the darkest Star Wars stories ever, and one that challenged Lucas' own assertion that the saga was for kids.
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In fact, the revent theatrical rerelease of Revenge of the Sith was so succesful at the box office, one wonders what the best version of Star Wars really is: Something totally kid friendly? A dark serious show like Andor? Or something in-between? Hamill wasn't providing an answer to this question, but as the man who was actually there, he's certainly the expert on how times have changed.