The Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) we saw in STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI was not the heroic, positive character we saw in the original trilogy, and was instead tired and disillusioned after leaving The Force behind. After coming to conclusions about the true, flawed nature of the Jedi he did manage to embrace The Force one last time to hold off Kylo Ren while the Resistance escaped, a move that resulted in his death, evaporating into nothing. Hamill shared some thoughts on the death of his classic character, comparing him to a junkie taking one last, big hit.
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Hamill shared his view on Twitter along with the image of a comic book-rendering of his character’s final scene. “THE FORCE KILLED LUKE. You have to acknowledge the irony in his fate,” he says. “Almost like an addict that kicked his habit cold-turkey, remained clean for decades, only to re-use just once & then, tragically, overdoses.”
Here's the tweet itself:
Hamill has opened up a lot about this new Luke Skywalker, including how he didn’t necessarily agree with writer/director Rian Johnson’s take on him, what he thought J.J. Abrams had in mind for the future when the character was teased at the end of FORCE AWAKENS, and how his own cynicism about the world reflected Luke’s own. But no matter how much he talks about THE LAST JEDI all people want to know about is the next movie, and though he confirmed a few days ago that he will indeed be in EPISODE IX that’s all he can and will say about it.
Hamill’s view is certainly poignant and paints Luke’s death as both tragic and inevitable. He was denying his destiny and powers for so long, building up so much resentment and going to the island he was on (Ahch-To) to die. It’s only that he does die after tapping into those powers once again in an extremely intense way, which, to Hamill’s point, is ironic indeed. Although, as we’ve seen in past Star Wars movies when a Jedi dies it isn’t really the end. As the comic above says it’s about going to a “larger world,” which means one where he can now be a “Force ghost” with Obi-Wan and Yoda.
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STAR WARS EPISODE IX hits theaters December 2019.