Mark Hamill returned to the role of Luke Skywalker for the epic Mandalorian finale, but he wasn’t the only actor involved.
The season 2 finale of The Mandalorian, “The Rescue,” came with a ton of big surprises, though nothing topped the return of a young post-Return of the Jedi Luke Skywalker. Seeing the iconic Star Wars character return to the franchise in any capacity is always fun, but The Mandalorian put a new twist on it by giving us a version of the character we never thought we’d see again.
In the episode, the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) teamed up with Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison), Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) and Cara Dune (Gina Carano) to save Grogu from the hands of Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito). After thinking they had defeated Gideon, the team is suddenly set upon by an army of Dark Troopers and find themselves trapped. However, when their demise looks nigh, in flies in Luke Skywalker to save the day, having been alerted to their presence when Grogu sent out a communique in “The Tragedy.” In the closing moments, Luke offers to take Grogu away and teach him the ways of the Force, and Mando obliges.
I think everyone cried. I know I did.
But obviously the team didn’t get young Mark Hamill to reprise his role. So who exactly played Luke this time? The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau has the answers.
The credits for the finale lists actor Max Lloyd-Jones (War of the Planet of the Apes) as the “Double for Jedi.” Presumably, he played Luke during the bits when the Jedi Master was mowing down Dark Troopers, that being a bit much to ask of the 69-year-old Hamill.
HOLLYWOOD, CA – MAY 21: Actor Max Lloyd-Jones arrives at OK! Magazine’s “So Sexy” LA Event at Lure on May 21, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images)
Still, he wasn’t the only person involved. Mark Hamill was actually on set for filming and did more than just provide Luke’s voice. He shot Luke’s conversation with the group, with VFX technology used to make him look like the younger Luke we remember from the original trilogy. That’s some impressive work right there, although YouTuber Shamook thinks it can be improved upon. Is his deepfake video even more seamless? You decide:
Hamill tweeted that managing to keep this scene secret was “nothing less than a miracle,” and we have to agree. “A real triumph for spoiler-haters everywhere!” But of course, the show began its existence with a big reveal that didn’t get out beforehand. “We started off the whole series with the Baby Yoda reveal – with the Grogu reveal – that was a secret that everybody was really blown away by,” Favreau told Good Morning America. “Part of that is not telling too many people, not having merchandise that’s being tooled up and announced and everything. And then the very last episode having Mark Hamill actually on set filming and us using whatever technology we had available to de-age him and try to make him look as much like he did in the old films.”
"It was very tricky because it’s very hard to keep a secret nowadays, especially with Star Wars because people are so curious about it. And there are so many people involved with the process with visual effects finishing, making it, filming it, the studios everything. Every piece of casting leaked, and we were so scared right up until it aired that our surprise cameo was gonna leak too."
It’s true that we knew about the appearances of characters like Boba Fett, Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan Kryze well in advance of the second season, so it’s doubly impressive that they managed to keep Luke a secret.
The Mandalorian has been renewed for a third season over on Disney+. Now that Grogu is training with Luke Skywalker, will we see more cameos in future episodes?
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