Mark Hamill came up with his own, insanely dark backstory for why Luke is like that in The Last Jedi

I thought, “What could make someone give up a devotion to what is basically a religious entity, to give up being a Jedi?” Well, the love of a woman. So he falls in love with a woman. He gives up being a Jedi. They have a child together. At some point the child, as a toddler, picks up an unattended lightsaber, pushes the button and is killed instantly. The wife is so full of grief, she kills herself. I thought, that would be… Because I hear these horrible stories about these children who find unattended guns and wind up dead. That resonated with me so deeply.

Hamill says he brought Johnson this idea, which is one of those moments in film history that people with a time machine, a camera, and some decent sense of stealth should really go check in on, because imagining the director’s face in that moment is giving us a lot of joy.  Hamill has his own explanation for why the idea of Luke Skywalker’s child fatally impaling himself on a laser sword didn’t make the uh, cut, though, and it simply comes down to time: “[Rian] didn’t have the time to tell a backstory like that, I’m guessing. He just wanted a brief thing to explain it. And to me, it didn’t justify it.” Yes. Okay. Let’s go with that.

You can see Hamill’s full Bullseye interview here.

[via Variety]