Hamill added: “I almost had to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he’s Jake Skywalker, he’s not my Luke Skywalker.”
Still, Hamill’s comments appear to confirm
that so-called creative differences were shaking up the galaxy far, far
away long before the film’s release.
“I still haven’t accepted it completely, but
it’s only a movie,” Hamill said. “I hope people like it. I hope they
don’t get upset. And I came to really believe that Rian was the exact
man that they needed for this job.”
In other words, Rian Johnson fucked it all up.
And that's cool. Once Disney bought the property, it no longer matters what George Lucas thinks. Even if he thought he was bamboozled. Decades later when we're all dead, maybe Lucas's daughter will re-buy the franchise back and right the ship?
But I think Hamill has a point in his disgust. There's been a massive push to keep linking back to the storyline of how and why the Jedi. He was always portrayed as the optimistic being who disappeared when one of his students went nutty and he had to put a stop to him. This drove Luke to quit and determine that the Jedi are nothing but problems anyway. The lineage of this family (aside from others around the galaxy) always painted Hamill to be "the chosen one." But slowly, they added more that diluted the pool. And more again. Teacher and student and teacher and student. Cycles forever. All while the Jedi's power can ONLY be corrupted. Consider Anakin and Luke and Lei and... well Darth Vader (a.k.a. Anakin) was all about how he could net the power of the universe. The Emperor just figured a guy that driven must be a great asset. Then it skipped a generation, then the offspring of Kylo Ren. I think Hamill's beef was that Luke would never in a million years consider the worse case scenario. Raising a weapon against another (and a family member at that). He saw the future and it made him go darker than usual. It's that question "if you could kill Hitler if you knew he was going to be Hitler, would you do it?" The answer in this movie...there is no answer. In fact, they get their cake and eat it too. Depending on whose story you believe ("Rashomon"). To Hamill, it seems the Luke he wanted always had a shred of...hope. I think they desperately lost out on Rey's training. Luke could remain silent. In fact have the training in complete silence (to offset the yakety sax of Yoda on Dagobah). It could be hilarious (which they attempted to do with a montage of...following?
I don't think Rian Johnson completely understands the feeling of the Star Wars universe. He completely understands the logic. But what Hamill may be implying is that, forget the fact that his mean old man character makes sense for future episodes, does it make emotional sense? The answer for me is no. Logically, yes. But that's what the ones who hated this version of Luke has to come to terms with. That the powers that be went with their heads and not with their hearts. Both avenues yields the same result of dissatisfied audiences. Which, in a strange way, is a good talking point for a movie that means so much. People are willing to lose friends over heated discussions over it. That is amazing, considering the context of a movie that has silly dialogue and puppets.
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