There is certainly a camp out there that aren’t feeling Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I get it; the film overturns the apple cart in way that are upsetting and (hopefully) permanent. There has been no greater critic of Johnson’s choices, in particular of the direction Luke Skywalker goes down, than Mark Hamill. He continues to be quite candid in his feelings and feels that Skywalker would hvae gone down a different path. In fact, he outright says in a brand new interview (via CBM) that this is “not my Luke Skywalker.”
“I said to Rian, ‘Jedi’s don’t give up.’ I mean, even if he had a problem, he would maybe take a year to try and regroup. But if he made a mistake, he would try and right that wrong. So, right there we had a fundamental difference, but it’s not my story anymore. It’s somebody else’s story – and Rian needed me to be a certain way to make the ending effective. …That’s the crux of my problem. Luke would never say that. I’m sorry. Well, in this version, see I’m talking about the George Lucas Star Wars. This is the next generation of Star Wars, so I almost had to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he’s Jake Skywalker. He’s not my Luke Skywalker, but I had to do what Rian wanted me to do because it serves the story well.”
Don’t get it twisted, Hamill still thinks Johnson did a great job and just hopes fans enjoy the movie…
“But listen, I still haven’t accepted it completely. But it’s only a movie. I hope people like it. I hope they don’t get upset, and I came to really believe that Rian was the exact man that they need for this job.”
Yeah, Hamill and others need to realize that the era of George Lucas is over, and Star Wars will never be the same again. J.J. Abrams might restore a little bit of it back with Episode 9, but there’s no returning from the changes Johnson has made.
