Star Wars: Mark Hamill Opens Up About Emotional Impact of Han Solo’s Death

The events of Star Wars: The Force Awakens provided audiences with a number of emotional moments, with even actor Mark Hamill having a strong response to the narrative. The actor recently expressed his disappointment that the film killed off Han Solo, preventing Luke Skywalker from having a reunion with someone so close to him.

“I just thought, Luke’s never going to see his best friend again. You look at it in a self-centered way,” Hamill shared with Den of Geek regarding his reaction to Han’s death. “I said that it was a big mistake that those three people would never reunite in any way. I guess I was wrong, because nobody seems to care! I have to stipulate that I care, but it didn’t really seem to affect the larger audience. Luke, Han, and Leia will never be together again, and I’ll probably never get to work with Harrison [Ford] again.”

When Lucasfilm announced that they were developing a sequel trilogy and that stars Hamill, Ford, and Carrie Fisher would all be returning, fans expected to see the trio reunite for the first time on screen since 1983’s Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. The death of Han Solo and Luke’s self-imposed exile on Ahch-To prevented that from happening, with the real-life passing of Fisher shattering any notion that the three performers could reunite for a flashback scene in Star Wars: Episode IX.

Hamill also noted that he had hoped his return would see Skywalker play a major part of all three films, as opposed to a brief appearance at the end of Force Awakens and his character’s death in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

“Then the second thing was that they killed me off. I thought, ‘Oh, okay, you should push my death off to the last one,’” Hamill theorized. “That’s what I was hoping when I came back: no cameos and a run-of-the-trilogy contract. Did I get any of those things? Because as far as I’m concerned, the end of VII is really the beginning of VIII. I got one movie! They totally hornswoggled me.”

The events of the sequel trilogy might not have played out how he anticipated, though the actor will be returning for Episode IX in some capacity, leaving fans to speculate how his performance will factor into the plot.

Star Wars: Episode IX lands in theaters on December 20th.

What do you think of Hamill’s remarks? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

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