Luke Skywalker is back in The Last Jedi - and it´s a triumphant return. The Star Wars actor recalls the shock of finding out about Fisher and Harrison Ford´s secret affair and the pain of losing his longtime friendHan Solo is dead and Princess Leia, heartbreakingly, died almost a year ago, when Carrie Fisher died on a flight from London, as she was going home for Christmas. Which means, out of the original Star Wars trio, the most holy of cinematic trinities, Luke Skywalker is the last one standing. This is not how anyone expected it to end, least of all Luke himself, Mark Hamill. So, while the latest item in the Star Wars canon, The Last Jedi, written and directed by Rian Johnson, is great fun - as exciting and inspired as its predecessor, JJ Abrams´ The Force Awakens, but a lot funnier and without all the heavy-lifting of exposition and character setup that Abrams´s film had to cram in - it is also very poignant.No one could have foreseen Fisher´s death and, in fact, she was going to be the centre of the next movie, just as Ford was the heart of The Force Awakens, and The Last Jedi is very much Hamill´s film. But there are moments in this movie that feel, in retrospect, breathtakingly prescient. The scenes between Luke and Leia after their long separation made my throat catch. I cannot imagine what it must be like for Hamill to watch them, his last on-screen moments with the woman who, for 40 years, was his on-screen sister and his off-screen friend. Continue reading...
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