Mark Hamill Wanted Luke Skywalker to Turn to the Dark Side in RETURN OF THE JEDI
Mark Hamill has always been open with his thoughts about Star Wars and the direction the story has taken, especially in regard to his character Luke Skywalker. As you know, he was very vocal regarding how his character was handled in this latest trilogy and didn’t seem to care for it. He had different ideas for Luke, but this isn’t the first time he’s felt that way.
When George Lucas was making Return of the Jedi, Hamill wanted Luke to take a much darker path; he wanted Luke to actually turn to the Dark Side! While talking to EW, the actor explained what he was thinking and why Lucas didn’t go down that darker path:
“I remember complaining to George [Lucas] about something in Revenge of the Jedi. And I said, ‘It’s so predictable and pat,’ and he said, ‘Mark, don’t forget. These things were made for children.’ His original intention was to make movies for, you know, kids! Adolescents and younger. And we’re bringing our adult sensibilities to it and that’s where we go wrong.”
Hamill is quick to point out that Lucas ultimately knew best, after all this was his story:
“He’s the man. He knows what he wants, and I realized he was right. He said, ‘All fairy tales get tied up neatly at the end.’ Because I thought after Empire we should really go crazy as possible with the last one, but there’s a reason why George is where he is and I’m where I am.”
Hamill went on to explain where he was expecting the story for Luke to go, his version of “crazy as possible”:
“Well, I thought I was turning evil. Because I was wearing all black. I thought I would go to the dark side in the last one. And, of course, you have to redeem yourself. But that movie is the way I felt it was going with the preceding episode. But every actor wants to play their own evil twin.”
In the end, Lucas made the right move for Luke Skywalker. When previously talking about the character’s story arc in the original trilogy and where the character ended up in Return of the Jedi, Dave Filoni put it all into perspective saying:
“It’s amazing when you watch Return of the Jedi that Luke has never done anything that I would call, like he’s a bad character. He has a tendency to be dark and a lot of people wanted Anakin, oh he should have been darker as a character. It’s not at all. I believed Luke would turn to the dark side. I believed he would kill the emperor and because of the way George arranged this story, I knew that was the wrong thing to do. When he’s saying, you want your weapon, you know strike me down, I’m defenseless. He wants him to give into his anger and give into his hate and the feature, the structure that George has laid out in all the movies is coming to fruition now.
“The only thing that’s going to save him is not his connection to the force, it’s not the power’s he’s learned, it’s not all these things are an advantage to him that’s gotten him to the table. But what saves Luke is his ability to look at all that, look at his father and say, ‘No. I’m going to throw away this weapon. I’m not going to do that I’m going to let that go and be selfless.’ And he says, ‘I am a Jedi like my father before me.’ But what ‘s really saying is ‘I love my father, and there’s nothing you can do that’s going to change that.’
The emperor can’t understand that connection. ‘Why would you take something like that over the power of the galaxy, why won’t you take this?’ And Anakin has to decide to be the father he’s never had. He has to give up all the power in the galaxy and save his son and that’s the selfless act he does in return for his son. That’s what saves him. The son saves the father and the father saves the son, and it works out perfectly and I’ve drawn that line all the way to The Phantom Menace to Return of the Jedi. That’s the story of Star Wars.”
Hamill didn’t understand at the time that that’s what Lucas was going for. There’s so much depth to the story and the characters that fill these films. Thankfully we have super fans like Dave Filoni to point them out to us!