What happened to Mark Hamill between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back

When George Lucas science fiction epic Star Wars: A New Hope took the world by storm in 1977 and starred a relatively unknown Mark Hamill starring young Luke Skywalker. Hamill may not have been the most recognized actor working in Hollywood at the time, but he certainly looked the part. In the late 70s, women swooned, unable to get enough of his feathered blond hair, dreamy blue eyes, and Californian smile. And honest people would also admit that Hamill was a handsome young man with boyish qualities that appealed to a wide audience. If George Lucas thought he was right, then who are we to argue?

So when he was chosen to use the Force and started a crash course to face the evil Darth Vader face-to-face, Hamill really cashed in on his camera-friendly beach boys. So much so that the audience was even ready to ignore his far from Stanislovian method of playing when he tried to keep up with the legend in Sir Alec Guinness and more polished Harrison Ford And Carrie Fisher. After the game-changing success of the epic, talk immediately turned to a sequel, with Hamill poised to reprise his starring role as Skywalker in the film. Star Wars. Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. But sometimes things do not go according to plan, and after a terrible car accident on January 11, 1977 in California, he was lucky enough to participate in the sequel at all.

Mark Hamill explains what happened

Mark Hamill has always been very open about what happened, which caused a near-death experience that contributed to a noticeable change in his appearance between the two films. In 1978, he told Gossip Magazine, “I happened to be on the wrong freeway. I was somewhere far away in the thickets, and, thank God, there were no cars, no traffic. I was going 65-70 mph… I was speeding, going too fast… and what I think happened was that I tried to negotiate a ramp and lost control, rolled over and went off the road.” As a result, the actor suffered a broken cheekbone and a severely broken nose, which required pieces of cartilage from his ear during the reconstructive surgery. The difference in his looks wouldn’t be too drastic for you and me, but when you’re a nocturnal heartthrob starring in the biggest and most anticipated sequel in movie history, even the slightest change in the performer’s facial features becomes irreversible. be enlarged.

What is the biggest change in Mark Hamill’s face?

Hamill also stated in an interview with The Gossip that he had to be on set the next day to take some post-production pictures. Lucas used a take, and none of the shots showed the young Skywalker’s face. Fortunately, most of the main photos for star Wars was ready by the time of the accident and the film did not release until four months later in May, but when Hamill returned to filming two years later in 1979, he had a pronounced scar that ran from his right nostril to the right corner of his upper lip. His nose was also slightly deformed and wider than in the previous film.

The operation also seemed to have an unforeseen side effect, as Hamill appeared to have aged much more than the three years in real life between the two popular films. Naturally, everyone, including director George Lucas, was glad that Hamill survived to tell the story, but he knew that he would also have to make some changes to the script to accommodate his protagonist’s marked change in appearance. Or did he?

Did George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan rewrite the part for Hamill?

Lucas never thought about recasting the relatively unknown Hamill, and it is believed that he immediately began taking action to keep him in the sequel. There are still several rumors that Lucas, along with co-author Lawrence Kasdan added a scene at the very beginning The Empire Strikes Back to explain the golden boy’s post-accident surgery and scars. In the first scene where we see Hamill’s face, Skywalker is known to be fighting a furry cave wampa on the frozen planet of Hoth.

It was during this scene that Lucas and Kasdan allegedly decided that Luke would get a facial injury when he wasn’t originally supposed to get hit. Before he is rescued from a hostile environment by Han Solo and placed in the insides of a dead tauntaun for warmth, the wound he received during the attack would serve as the perfect cover. By the time Solo returns his friend to Echo Base’s hospital, the young Jedi in training has gauze all over the right side of his face.

Conflicting accounts of the “wump scene” and rewriting

According to Huffpost.com, there is reason to believe that the rewrite is just another of many myths about the ever-expanding star Wars Universe. A person named Lee Brackett had already completed the script for the sequel in February 1978. This script already included the wampa scene, which hit theaters a year later. It is also worth noting that in 1977, Hamill had already finished work on another film called Corvette Summer after the accident without any turmoil about his altered face. Which begs the question: why did Brackett, who tragically passed away before the film’s release a year later, suggest a contingency scene for what Hamill’s appearance would look like, a full year before the film’s debut and after it was seen on the big screen? screen after surgery in 1978 in Corvette Summer?

Yes, our brains start to hurt too. In any case, there is no doubt that Hamill suffered very serious injuries in a car accident and underwent reconstructive surgery using cartilage from his nose to restore his nose, and we are all better off if the multi-faceted star becomes the face of the biggest franchise in history. cinema, no matter what it looks like.