Mark Hamill's interviews for "The Last Jedi" have been incredibly fascinating to watch. The 66-year-old-actor seems somewhat bitter or, should I say, troubled by the way Luke Skywalker has been treated in Episode IX. He's said "if people are expecting me to come out and weigh in with what I think about it, they're going to be disappointed because it takes me a long time. At times, I'd say to Rian [Johnson], 'We gotta think of what the audience wants,'" Hamill said. "And he'd say, 'No, we've gotta think of what we want.' Which is a learning process for me."
The way Disney changed the trajectory of the Skywalker saga away from Lucas' vision is something that Mark Hamill revealed he wished they hadn't done: “What I wish is that they had been more accepting of his guidance and advice," Hamill told Metro. "Because he had an outline for [Episodes] VII, VIII, and IX. And it is vastly different to what they have done. But then again, I don’t want to be an old stick in the mud," Hamill confessed. "There were the originals. There are the prequels. But that’s all George. And now we have the next generation. And as far as I can see they are more popular than ever.”
Entertainment Weekly interviewed Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy last year and she explained that Lucas was "Not really” involved in any of the creative input of the new trilogy, but she added, “But he’ll whisper in my ear every now and then. Usually, it’s something specific or important to him about Jedi training. Things like that.”
“I think he’s starting to settle into this and just be a fan,” she added. “It’s taken a while. It’s hard to let go, after 40 years. That’s a lot of expectation and things he thought a lot about. Suddenly that next generation, that whole thematic idea he came up with, is in process.”
Hamill has now admitted to Metro that he thought Lucas' "Star Wars" prequels were more original than "The Force Awakens":
“What I thought was great about the prequels was the different technology that I had never seen before. All that CGI. And the fact that [George Lucas] wasn’t trying to do the same experience all over again.”
According to Hamill, George Lucas’ trajectory with the “Star Wars” prequels at least took the films down a brand new terrain, while J.J. Abrams’ “The Force Awakens” instead tried to tap into what made the original films so popular.
“I thought ‘The Force Awakens’ did that more than the early ones, because it had that the girl from a different planet, the death star, the Cantina sequence.”
When I asked Hamill whether that was Abrams’ intention, he responded, “Of course! He was trying to figure out what was it about the original movies that everybody loved. And that’s a different thought process than what George would have done. Because he would go, ‘I had a beginning, middle, and an end’.”