'Star Wars: Episode IX' Script Security Is Even More Intense Than 'The Last Jedi' According to Mark Hamill

The upcoming Star Wars: Episode IX is set to be the culmination of the entire Skywalker Saga, which kicked off with 1977's Star Wars: A New Hope. Anticipation for the film is so high that Lucasfilm has had to employ new tactics to ensure spoilers don't fall into the wrong hands, with Mark Hamill detailing the lengths to the studio will go to ensure secrecy.

"They're going to fly [the rewrites] over with somebody from the company," Hamill recently explained to Entertainment Weekly. "They're going to come and give it to me and wait for me to read it before I give it back. So no pressure! You can't even keep it overnight. But that's the way it is now."

Not only will someone supervise Hamill while he reads the rewrites, but the script will be on a dark red paper with black text, which ensures anyone who attempts to photocopy the pages will be left with dark pages that are illegible. These security measures are a far cry from the experience Hamill originally had with the first film.

"I remember back when I read the first Star Wars[script], I was like, 'Wow, that's the goofiest thing I've ever read.' I gave it to my best friend to read, and I said, 'What do you think of it?' He said, 'It's really wild, it's crazy, can I give it to Meredith?' 'Sure, go ahead,'" Hamill recalled. "It went around to all my friends. Of course back then nobody cared. Nowadays it's like working for some secret deep state government organization, like being in the CIA. They're going to send rewrites over to Prague on this dark red paper that gives you a headache to read."

With Hamill being such a key figure in the Star Wars saga, he's allowed to use a physical script, while many other members of the cast are only ever given digital versions of the script that can't be duplicated. Even still, Hamill being exempt from having to settle for an electronic script meant having to follow other protocol.

"I like to make notes, little cartoon drawings in the margins to help me visualize it … whatever you have to do to help remember it," the actor shared. "You can't do that in electronic form, it's so impersonal. I'm old school and long for the days of paper scripts. They wound up letting me keep a script when we were doing [Star Wars: The Last Jedi], but I had to lock it up in a safe every night and then carry it with me and never let it out of my sight. And I can understand why — if [a script] gets out it ruins it for everyone."

Details about the new film are still relatively under wraps, though with the film hitting theaters in December of 2019, we're likely to learn information imminently.

Are you surprised that even Hamill has to follow these protocols regarding the script? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!