JJ Abrams told Mark Hamill Star Wars wasn’t Luke Skywalker's story anymore.
In The Hollywood Reporter’s January 2026 Actor Roundtable, Mark Hamill revealed JJ Abrams shut down a 30-second Luke-Han-Leia reunion in The Force Awakens.
Mark Hamill has never been shy about his feelings on how the Star Wars sequel trilogy handled Luke Skywalker. In The Hollywood Reporter‘s first Actor Roundtable of 2026, he revealed he pitched a brief reunion scene between Luke, Leia, and Han Solo during The Force Awakens, only to be shut down by writer-director J.J. Abrams.
When asked which living actor he would most like to work with, Hamill named Harrison Ford.
“Well, in the sequel trilogy, Harrison Ford, ‘cause I only had two cameos,” Hamill said. “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.’ And JJ said, ‘Well, Mark, it’s not Luke’s story anymore.’ I said, ‘Star Wars wasn’t Obi Wan’s story but Alec Guinness had a crucial commitment, you know...’ Anyway, nobody listens to me.”
That moment fits a pattern Hamill has been quietly maintaining for nearly a decade. Throughout the sequel trilogy’s production and release, he repeatedly voiced his discomfort with the direction Rian Johnson took his character in The Last Jedi and, more broadly, with how little the new films seemed interested in honoring the original trio’s legacy.
“I fundamentally disagreed with every choice”
Hamill’s most famous criticism came during production of The Last Jedi. In Vanity Fair‘s May 2017 cover story, Hamill recounted confronting Johnson about Luke’s arc.
“I, at one point, had to say to Rian, ‘I pretty much fundamentally disagree with every choice you’ve made for this character. Now, having said that, I have gotten it off my chest, and my job now is to take what you’ve created and do my best to realize your vision.’”
He specifically took issue with Luke becoming a cynical, broken hermit who had abandoned the Jedi. Speaking to SFX magazine in April 2017 about the film’s first trailer, Hamill said, “As you know from the trailer, Luke says it’s time for the Jedi to end. When I read it I went ‘What?’. He was always the most optimistic character, who believed with all his heart and soul in what Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi taught him.”
In a December 2017 interview that went viral, Hamill went further. “I said to Rian, ‘Jedis don’t give up.’ I mean, even if [Luke] had a problem, he would maybe take a year to try and regroup, but if he made a mistake, he would try and right that wrong, so right there, we had a fundamental difference. But it’s not my story anymore, it’s somebody else’s story and Rian needed me to be a certain way to make the ending effective. That’s the crux of my problem. Luke would never say that. I’m sorry.”
In the same interview, Hamill coined a phrase that stuck. “This is the next generation of Star Wars. I almost had to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he’s ‘Jake Skywalker,’ he’s not my Luke Skywalker.”
The “Humbled Hamill” walk-back
After The Last Jedi released to a polarized fan response, Hamill walked back some of his public criticism. On December 26, 2017, he tweeted:
“I regret voicing my doubts & insecurities in public. Creative differences are a common element of any project but usually remain private. All I wanted was to make good movie. I got more than that- @rianjohnson made an all-time GREAT one! #HumbledHamill”
The hashtag became its own minor pop culture moment, and Hamill has generally been more measured in subsequent interviews. He has repeatedly emphasized his respect for Johnson personally even when his criticism of Luke’s arc has resurfaced.
He’s still revisiting it in 2025 and 2026
The pattern Hamill keeps returning to is consistent. In a June 2025 appearance on the Bullseye with Jesse Thorn podcast, he addressed the long-running narrative directly.
“The fact that I went public with my dissatisfaction with the motivation for Luke becoming a suicidal hermit might have colored things in a way that, maybe I should have kept that to myself. But I kept saying to Rian, ‘This would just make Luke double down even more,’ and he said, ‘Well, your class at the Jedi Academy were wiped out.’ I said, ‘Rian, I saw entire planets wiped out! If anything, Luke doubles down and hardens his resolve in the face of adversity.’”
He also defended Johnson personally. “Johnson is one of the most gifted directors I have ever worked with. He’s amiable, he’s fun on set, he’s smart, he made a great movie. I think the standoff between Kylo Ren — Adam Driver — and I at the end is so well-staged. I love Knives Out and Brick. He’s one of my favorite directors.”
The careful distinction Hamill keeps drawing is between Johnson the filmmaker, whom he respects, and the choices made about Luke, which he has never fully accepted.
The throughline
The pattern across nearly a decade of Hamill interviews is simple. He wanted Luke to have a more meaningful role in the new trilogy, whether it was reuniting with his old friends, staying true to his heroic nature, or getting a send-off that honored four decades of the character.
Instead, he was repeatedly told some version of “it’s not Luke’s story anymore.”
Hamill has been remarkably gracious about it publicly. He has not badmouthed Johnson, has not turned on Abrams, has not joined the sequel-bashing crowd that took his early comments as ammunition. But the consistency of his framing across 2017, 2018, 2025, and now 2026 makes clear that he has not changed his mind. The Luke Skywalker in the sequels was not his Luke Skywalker, and the original trio reunion the audience wanted was permanently lost the moment Abrams said no.
With Carrie Fisher gone since 2016, Ford uninterested in returning to the franchise, and all three characters now canonically dead within Star Wars continuity, that reunion is structurally impossible. Hamill is the only one of the three still able to talk about it, and he keeps talking about it because nobody else can.
The current state of the franchise lends his criticism additional weight. The Mandalorian and Grogu is in the middle of a soft theatrical run that has Disney and Lucasfilm pivoting toward Star Wars: Starfighter in 2027 for a fresh start. The decisions that drove Hamill’s frustration in 2015 and 2017 are now widely seen, even by Star Wars defenders, as contributing factors to the franchise’s current theatrical struggles.
Hamill himself probably did not expect to still be litigating Luke’s sequel arc a decade after The Force Awakens. But the audience keeps asking. And every time someone asks, he gives essentially the same answer he gave Abrams in 2014. It would have only taken 30 seconds.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
The Hollywood Reporter Actor Roundtable (January 2026), primary source for the 30-second reunion quote and the Alec Guinness comparison
ScreenRant, GeekTyrant, SuperHeroHype, SFFGazette, and ComicBookMovie, January 2026 coverage of the THR roundtable
Vanity Fair (May 2017), original “fundamentally disagree with every choice” quote
SFX magazine (April 2017), Hamill’s “Luke says it’s time for the Jedi to end” reaction to the Last Jedi trailer
Collider, GameSpot, and Slate (December 2017), the verified “Jake Skywalker” and “Jedis don’t give up” interview quotes
Mark Hamill’s verified December 26, 2017 X post, “I regret voicing my doubts & insecurities”
AOL and Entertainment Weekly (June 2025), Hamill’s Bullseye with Jesse Thorn podcast quotes, including the verified Johnson defense and the “I saw entire planets wiped out” exchange
Variety (June 2017), Hamill’s “I got into trouble” walkback after the initial Vanity Fair quote