Lyin' Luke Skywalker! Mark Hamill Relishes Spreading Fake 'Star Wars' News — Here's Why
Two things we just learned about Mark Hamill: he hates spoilers and he’s an avowed liar.
During Friday’s Last Jedi panel at Star Wars Celebration, Hamill came clean about his truth-telling… or lack thereof. “I lie all the time on social media,” Hamill said, gleefully acknowledging that he tweets out incorrect intel.
It all stems from a disdain of spoilers, as he told Yahoo Movies after the panel. Hamill, you see, loathes having movies spoiled and hates when trailers ruin key plot points from a movie. So he was delighted that Rian Johnson’s initial trailer for The Last Jedi was impressionistic and purposely light on story details. Hamill also approved of Johnson keeping the preview’s shocking final line — Luke proclaiming, “It’s time for the Jedi to end” — a surprise. A still-stunned John Boyega told us it wasn’t in his script and he had no idea it was coming.
“It’s funny. They play tricks on us a lot, where they withhold a line or two to preserve the surprise,” Hamill confirmed. That prompted the star to recount the legendary story (watch above) of how George Lucas and director Irvin Kershner deliberately employed subterfuge to keep secret the pivotal line from The Empire Strikes Back: Darth Vader announcing to Luke, “No, I am your father.”
The scripted line, per Hamill, was “You don’t know the truth, Obi-Wan killed your father.” And that’s the line Darth Vader actor David Prowse delivered on set. Lucas and Kershner’s instincts turned out to be correct. Somehow, despite the scene taking place on an elevated platform with a wind machine blasting and Prowse’s voice already barely audible through his mask, word leaked that Alec Guinness’s Obi-Wan might not have been so knightly.
As Hamill tells it, he was reading a British tabloid a few days later and saw a headline based on Vader’s dummy line: “Guinness Head Baddie in Star Wars 2.”
“I was so thrilled,” Hamill recounted with a sly smile. “I said, ‘Ha, ha. We leaked fake information.'”
So for those of you who scour Hamill’s Twitter looking for Star Wars clues, caveat emptor.
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