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Mark Hamill says he was so desperate to share a scene with Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher in the Star Wars sequels that he specifically asked The Force Awakens helmer J. J. Abrams about it during filming. Sadly, though, the director wasn't as keen to see Luke, Leia, and Han Solo share the screen again – and actually had a specific reason for not wanting the original heroes to reunite.
"I said, 'Aren't we going to have a moment where all 3 of us get together to raise the roof? It'll only take 30 seconds,'" Hamill recalled as part of The Hollywood Reporter's latest Actor Roundtable. "And JJ said, 'Well, Mark, it's not Luke's story anymore."
While it's technically true that The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker were more about Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and the new generation of rebels as they went toe to toe with Adam Driver's Kylo Ren, it's hard to believe that a short reunion scene would've interrupted the narrative all that much.
If Luke, Leia, and Han were to have shared the screen again, they would've had to have done so early, however, given that Ford's scruffy-looking nerfherder was killed by Kylo Ren, his son, in 2015's Episode 7. Luke bit the dust in the 2017 sequel, too, fatally exhausting himself by using the Force to distract the First Order on Crait and protect the Resistance fighters, while Leia met her end in trilogy capper The Rise of Skywalker.
"Working on this new movie has been as much about trying to set up elements of what is beyond what you're seeing as it has been about telling a story that will be satisfying in and of itself," Abrams previously said of the chapter in an interview with Wired. "But it can't feel like a cop-out – like we're just setting things up and not resolving them."
The Star Wars sequel trilogy is streaming now on Disney Plus. For more from a galaxy far, far away, check our guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies and shows.
