How Mark Hamill wanted 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' to end
The amazing reunion scene he pitched to director J.J. Abrams.
— -- By now, everyone knows how 2015's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" ends.
OK, we'll be nice -- Spoiler alert ahead!
At the very end of the film, Harrison Ford's Han Solo tries to get his son Ben, aka Kylo Ren, to leave the First Order and the dark side and come home with him. Instead, Kylo kills his father, fully committing to the dark once and for all.
With "The Last Jedi" just over a week away, Mark Hamill recently stopped by "Popcorn With Peter Travers" to talk about the upcoming film, but also to look back at his illustrious legacy within the galaxy far, far away.
In fact, Hamill says he had an amazing idea for an alternate ending of sorts for "The Force Awakens" and pitched it to J.J. Abrams.
At the time of Solo's death, it's Daisy Ridley's Rey, Finn and Chewbacca who witness the evil act and try to save Solo, but Hamill wanted something drastically different.
"I was frustrated when I read the script and said, 'We don't have any scenes, even a brief reunion!' I objected to that. I said, 'I think the fans are not gonna like it.' I was wrong!"
Instead, fans loved the film and as Hamill points out, "there was no backlash."
But he told Abrams, "Instead of Finn and Rey coming and almost saving Han, what if it's Leia and I?"
He continued, "She's about to be abducted by two costume guards, one guard turns to the other guard, shoots the guard, takes off his helmet and it's me! That I did get her message. I said, No. 1, it's a hell of an entrance, No. 2, it's misdirection ... We're [also] back on a Death Star, very similar! We rush to his aid, we don't alter what you want to do, but if we witness Han dying, that has so much emotional resonance that will carry into the next film."
"That was my suggestion, as you see ... [it didn't happen]," he said, laughing.
But wow, what could have been.
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"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" hits theaters nationwide on Dec. 15.
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