Mark Hamill made a brief but key return to the Skywalker Saga for its final instalment this month, with Luke Skywalker’s first appearance in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker very reminiscent of his opening scene in Star Wars: The Last Jedi – save for the fact he’s catching the Skywalker lightsaber, rather than tossing it away.
Unsurprisingly, some viewers have taken this – and the line that “A Jedi’s weapon deserves more respect” – as a dig at Rian Johnson’s treatment of Luke in the hugely divisive The Last Jedi, but according to director J.J. Abrams, that really isn’t the case.
“I think that people who say ‘Oh, this film is flipping off The Last Jedi‘, like when Luke says the thing he does about the lightsaber…If the scene in The Last Jedi, where Luke tosses the saber over his shoulder, was immediately followed by Luke saying ‘A Jedi’s weapon deserves more respect,’ I’d think it was insane,” states Abrams. “But one of the many brilliant things that Rian did in Last Jedi was give Luke an arc. He learned something. He got somewhere. He ended that film and recommitted to the thing that in the very beginning of the film, he was rejecting. The idea that even Luke Skywalker can learn something. For a kid to hear Luke Skywalker say ‘I was wrong,’ I think is a beautiful thing.”
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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker sees J.J. Abrams (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) directing a cast that includes Star Wars veterans Daisy Ridley (Rey), Adam Driver (Kylo Ren), John Boyega (Finn), Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron), Lupita Nyong’o (Maz Kanata), Domhnall Gleeson (General Hux), Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico), Joonas Suotamo (Chewbacca), Billie Lourd (Lieutenant Connix), Greg Grunberg (Snap Wexley), Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine) and Carrie Fisher (Leia Organa) as well as new additions Naomi Ackie (Lady Macbeth), Richard E. Grant (Logan), Dominic Monaghan (Lost), and Keri Russell (The Americans).
Via Dark Horizons
