About a year ago, Star Wars fans had the experience of a lifetime as Lucasfilm delivered the eighth and final episode in Season 2 of The Mandalorian on Disney+. This show became an Emmy-Winner two years over and rejuvenated the franchise in unexpected ways, all before Chapter 16 brought one of the most epic cameos in franchise history: Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker.
As Pedro Pascal's Din Djarin, Katee Sackhoff's Bo-Katan Kryze, and crew boarded Moff Gideon's Imperial cruiser to rescue The Child (later known as Grogu), working to figure out where to bring the force-wielding youngling. As the battle came to a head, the original trilogy hero made his entrance in grand fashion, wielding his classic green lightsaber to defeat the super-droids ahead of him and make his mark on the series.
Star Wars fans and crew members alike still look back on Luke's appearance in The Mandalorian as a turning point for the show's place in the franchise's landscape, especially considering how almost nobody saw it coming. Now, more than a year later, it's still being celebrated for its success, most recently by the very man who made the cameo happen.
Mark Hamill Celebrates Luke Skywalker Disney+ Reveal
Star Wars icon Mark Hamill took to Twitter to celebrate the one-year anniversary of his cameo appearance as Jedi Master Luke Skywalker in Chapter 16 of The Mandalorian, entitled "The Rescue."
Hamill responded to a post celebrating the cameo from the Three Men and a Baby Yoda Podcast, whose account shared an image of a cloaked Skywalker wielding his lightsaber from the episode itself.
"It’s been one year to the day since the great man returned Mark Hamill and gave the Star Wars fanbase one it’s greatest moments ever! What are you looking forward to next in the upcoming stories?"
Hamill quote-tweeted this post with one of his own, featuring a picture of his stunt-double, Max Lloyd-Jones, holding a Grogu replica. Hamill also joked about Lloyd-Jones being "clearly too handsome" for this role as he helped bring Luke Skywalker back to life on Disney+.
"Happy Anniversary to the return of Luke on The Mandalorian. I'd like to thank my double Max Lloyd-Jones who did a great job, despite being clearly too handsome for the part."
Luke Skywalker's Disney+ Impact Leaving Its Mark
The Mandalorian took some major steps forward in pushing the live-action Star Wars narrative, particularly by introducing originally animated characters like Bo-Katan and Rosario Dawson's Ahsoka Tano. Even with all this taken into account, almost nobody brings attention back to this universe quite like Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker.
The series' first on-screen Jedi was the core hero in each film from the Original Trilogy in the 1970s and '80s before returning to the role in the Sequel Trilogy, with his biggest 21st-century role coming in 2017's Episode XIII: The Last Jedi. His appearance in The Mandalorian came as a surprise, especially with the extensive de-aging that made him look the way he did after Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, sending the Star Wars fandom into a frenzy.
Although Hamill played his most iconic Star Wars role in Chapter 16, he also contributed to The Mandalorian in more subtle ways prior to this cameo. The longtime star provided an uncredited voiceover role as the droid EV-9D9 in "Chapter 5: The Gunslinger" from 2019, further setting his place in the Star Wars legacy into stone.
While the Luke Skywalker actor also offered his classic sense of humor by complimenting his stunt double's looks in his post, Hamill remains grateful for the chance to continue playing the Jedi master more than 40 years after his introduction. Whether Luke returns in the future is a mystery, although just getting him for a moment in The Mandalorian gave fans their fair share of his hero in the moment.
The first two seasons of The Mandalorian, along with all of Hamill's appearances as Luke Skywalker, are available to stream on Disney+.
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