When Luke Skywalker appeared at the end of The Mandalorian season 2, fans instantly wanted to know when we’d see the Jedi master again, and luckily, our prayers were answered pretty quickly. In the most recent episode of The Book of Boba Fett, we saw as Din Djarin went to the location of Luke’s new Jedi Temple to try to see Grogu, which meant fans were gifted an extended look at Luke training Grogu.
Of course, bringing back a character at a point in his life that we first saw almost 40 years ago in real-world time has its own set of logistical challenges. A lot of emphasis has been placed on the visual effects required to put 1980s Mark Hamill back on the screen as Luke, but the look isn’t the only thing they need to get right to really sell the character’s return if they’re not just going to cast a new actor. We need to believe the sound of his voice, too, which is quite a feat to accomplish.
Who voiced Luke?
But who voiced and played Luke this time around? Mark Hamill is credited as playing Luke Skywalker in the show, but it’s a bit more complicated than that, given that in The Mandalorian, the youthful version of Hamill’s voice was recreated artificially—albeit using clips of Hamill’s voice from the ’80s. There is also a credit for Scott Lang, the stunt double for Luke. Graham Hamilton was the performance artist for Skywalker, as well, given that many people needed to come together to bring the young version of the character to life.
For Luke’s appearance in The Mandalorian, Hamill was there on set and did certain aspects of the role again, despite also having Luke played by Max Lloyd-Jones. Lloyd-Jones was not used as the stand-in for The Book of Boba Fett but appeared as a different character in a previous episode of the show. For the voice, it clearly still sounds like Hamill, but the question we still don’t have the answer to this time around is whether they used the same synthesized process as they did in The Mandalorian or if they had Hamill record his dialogue and used other editing techniques to make it sound like Luke did post-Return of the Jedi. We’ll have to see if the team behind the production eventually explains the secrets this time like they did before.
And there was clearly a lot of VFX and voice work that went into having Luke Skywalker sound and look like he did back during the original trilogy, specifically around Return of the Jedi. So the question now is: How many times are we going to use visual effects to bring Luke Skywalker to life instead of re-casting a new actor to play Luke in the Disney+ world?
The future of Luke Skywalker
Seeing Luke Skywalker briefly in The Mandalorian was a great treat, and while the VFX in The Book of Boba Fett were frankly brilliant, it does set a difficult precedent going forward if they’re going to continue to include Luke Skywalker in their storylines. We saw at the end of “From the Desert Comes a Stranger” that Luke was giving Grogu an ultimatum: train as a Jedi or live his life as a Mandalorian with Din.
But if they’re going to continue pulling Luke back in, there does need to be a casting choice that isn’t completely reliant on VFX capabilities. Yes, he looked great in this episode, and yes, Mark Hamill will always be Luke Skywalker, but much like Alden Ehrenreich’s take on Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story, we can enjoy other interpretations of these characters and not keep pulling the original actors back in.
We’ll find out soon enough how much Luke will stay connected to The Mandalorian, but with Ahsoka being there to help him, we could see a lot more of Luke in the future, and it’d be nice to have someone else take a shot at playing Skywalker.
(image: Lucasfilm)
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