Mark Hamill is, and always be, Luke Skywalker. Today it is difficult to think of another actor to give life to the Most famous Jedi in the Galaxy. However, in its beginnings, when the Star Wars franchise was just taking off, Hamill he was about to lose his life, and George Lucas would have had no qualms about replacing him with another star. Luckily, this In the end it didn’t happenbut also caused the origin of one of the most iconic scenes and remembered that masterpiece called ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. Don’t you know the story? Make yourself comfortable, we’ll tell you.
This was Mark Hamill’s serious car accident that inspired George Lucas to ‘The Empire Strikes Back’
Run the year 1977 and the first Star Wars film, today known as the ‘Episode IV A New Hope’reached cinemas around the world to change the Hollywood industry forever and raised a young Mark Hamill to the most devastating stardom. The feature film long conceived by George Lucas was a absolute mass success and immediately laid the foundations for a saga that would expand with two more moviesin which we would see more adventures of Luke Skywalker and company.
However, in the period of time preceding to the ‘Episode V The Empire Strikes Back’and just shortly before the release of the first film, our hero, Mark Hamill, suffered a terrible car accident. He lost control of the car he was traveling in because he was going too fast and ended up going off the road. Luckily, the “only” price he paid for this was a fracture of the nose and left cheekbonea lesser evil considering that the accident could have cost him his life.
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Hamill feared for his career after the accident, but George Lucas came up with a way to justify your injuries in the next Star Wars movie.
Of course, the incident, in which there were no others involved or injured, It was a nightmare for Hamill since for a time he came to think that his career was over. And, in fact, the injuries caused to his face could have influenced his next jobs. to the point of removing him from acting.
But it was not like that. His face will end up scarring and recovering normality, although will change a bit in the process, which raised suspicions and gossip among people – evil tongues said that she had undergone plastic surgery.
Hamill had gone from having a youthful face to a more seasoned one for his injuries. The change was sufficiently noticeable to everyone so that George Lucas I felt I had to justify it somehow in the next Star Wars movie.
Thus, during the summer of ’77, the director began to formulate the first ideas for the sequel in its drafts script, and among these it is known that there were allusions to the Emperor, to Luke’s lost sister, and a scene that would explain the injuries by Hamill.
The scene in question ended up becoming a sequence that has was immortalized for posterity in the final footage of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’and it is about the Wampa attack scene What Luke suffers on the frozen planet of Hoth few minutes from the start of the film, while he is following the trail of a probe to a rebel base.
As you will remember if you have seen the scene (you have it above these lines), in it Luke is surprised by a Wampa enraged that attacks him without barely giving him time to defend himself, scratching his face with his huge paws. Later, the Jedi appears hanging upside down in the creature’s cavern, with serious wounds on his face. Close to becoming the Wampa’s next meal, Luke manages to use the Force in time to draw his lightsaber and escape from certain deathcutting off the beast’s arm and escaping from the place to continue with his personal mission.
Without a doubt, an example of how the personal lives of the actors can influence stories of the movies and a extraordinary anecdote that in the end did not cut short the career of everyone’s beloved Mark Hamill.
