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Mark Hamill created a backstory for Luke and it’s absolutely heartbreaking

By David Harris (Razor)

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Actor Mark Hamill created a backstory for Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and it is a tragic and heart-wrenching tale…

Star Wars icon Mark Hamill, who has been part of the Star Wars legacy since that first film in 1977 (A New Hope), didn’t have a single line in 2015’s The Force Awakens, but that’s all about to change when The Last Jedi hits theaters worldwide on December 15.

If you’ve seen any of the promotional images or trailers for the film, you’ll have noticed a tortured, tired and lonely looking Luke Skywalker, and that’s exactly what Hamill was going for, according to an all-new interview the actor held with Entertainment Weekly. Hamill says he had to create his own backstory for Luke, and what he came up with will most likely have you in tears.

"I wrote lots and lots of scenarios. I made notes that he fell in love with a woman who was a widow and had this young child. He left the Jedi to raise this young child and marry this woman. And the child got hold of a lightsaber and accidentally killed himself."

Well, that certainly broke my heart in about a million pieces. Thanks, Mark! Now, all I’ll be doing after I go see The Last Jedi on opening night, is wondering what might have been if Luke’s unnamed wife and son had lived.

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Of course, in Star Wars Legends, Luke had a wife named Mara Jade, and together, they had a son…a son they named Ben, after Luke’s first Jedi mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Fast forward to Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, and in 2015 when The Force Awakens hits theaters, Luke doesn’t have a wife or child, and Ben has been renamed Ben Solo (Kylo Ren) the child born to Leia and Han Solo.

Back to why Hamill created such a bleak backstory for Luke, the actor says he needed to go to a dark place for his character in The Last Jedi. Hamill needed to relate real-world tragedy to that of Luke’s history, in order to be in the right frame of mind, and thinking about the very real tragedy of everyday gun violence, where children can get their hands on a parent’s gun and end up “killing a sibling or themselves,” was what worked.

My God, I am now really worried about Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi. Hamill did reiterate, however, that this was his own made-up backstory, and in no way reflected current Star Wars canon. Perhaps Lucasfilm should hire Hamill to write some scripts after Episode IX. Just a thought.

Next: BB-8 punches it, a Porg flies, and the cast trains in these The Last Jedi teasers

Star Wars: The Last Jedi hits theaters worldwide on December 15.

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