Mark Hamill says The Force Awakens almost had a weirder opening scene

The original Star Wars movies kicked off Mark Hamill’s acting career, and he returned to play Luke Skywalker once again in the recent Star Wars sequel trilogy. He even appeared as Luke in The Mandalorian, so the role as treated him very well.

When Hamill isn’t playing Luke Skywalker — or tackling one of the other iconic roles he’s taken on over the years — he can often be found interacting with fans on Twitter. And in a recent tweet, he confirmed reports of a deleted scene from 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Per UberFacts, the scrapped opening scene of the film would have seen “Luke Skywalker’s severed hand floating through space, still holding his lightsaber.” Hamill retweeted the report, joking about how much more screen time he would have had if they’d kept the hand in:

"As my hand hurtled through the stratosphere, the flesh & bone burn away & the lightsaber impales the surface of an unnamed planet. Just imagine: Had this sequence been retained, I would’ve had bookended cameos, plus TWICE the screen time!"

By “bookended cameos,” Hamill is referring to the fact that he also appears at the very end of The Force Awakens, this time fully in the flesh.

Why did Star Wars scrap the opening scene of The Force Awakens?

It’s unclear why the creators chose to start the trilogy differently. It’s possible they wanted to place a greater focus on the new characters or kick things off with more action.

Whatever their reasoning, fans still got to enjoy one Luke Skywalker appearance in The Force Awakens. And Hamill reprised his role in a bigger way during The Last Jedi…though Luke’s missing hand didn’t see nearly as much action.

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