Luke Skywalker Almost Had A Much Darker Name In Star Wars (And Mark Hamill Preferred It) – BGR

Perhaps one of the most beloved hero’s journeys in cinematic history is the farm boy who travels across the galaxy to rescue a princess from a space station that resembles a moon. Luke Skywalker went looking for adventure, which launched “Star Wars,” one of the great fantasy movies of the ’70s and one of the most groundbreaking films ever made. It also led to a bit of family drama and the overthrow of an empire.

When you think about it, that’s a story that’s a bit on the dark side, right? Such tough challenges and moral choices would be more fitting for a hardened hero with a name to match. Well, it turns out that in the early days of the creation of “Star Wars,” this quest — featuring bathrobe-wearing wizards and dogfights in spaceships designed in pubs (seriously) – was meant for a Luke Starkiller, not Luke Skywalker.

In an interview with This Morning (via YouTube), “Star Wars” legend Mark Hamill recalled that he’d gone as far as filming a lot of scenes with the original name of Luke Starkiller before some creative decisions got made. “It stuck for so long that we shot the scene, ‘I’m Luke Starkiller, I’m here to rescue you,'” Hamill explained. “And they came back the next week, and I said, ‘Why are we doing that scene again?’ They said, ‘Oh, they’ve changed your name.’ I said, ‘To what?’ And they said, ‘To Skywalker.’ Unfortunately, the name change didn’t sit right with the Jedi-in-the-making at the time.

Given how late in the game the alteration was, it required Hamill to shake off his character’s original surname in place of another, which the “Star Wars” veteran struggled to deal with. “You’ve gotten so used to the other, and plus, let’s face it, Luke could use a little machoing up with his name,” added Hamill. “I said, it sounded like Luke Flyswatter. I hated it, I just hated it. Because for four months, that’s all it was.”

George Lucas, the creator of “Star Wars,” would later reveal various issues he had with the franchise, but the surname was one that was dealt with quickly. In “The Making of Star Wars” (via Yahoo), the director and original creator explained that the switch was due to events happening at the time. “That I did because I felt a lot of people were confusing him with someone like Charles Manson. It had very unpleasant connotations.” While Starkiller might have been removed long ago, it was kept on ice until it reappeared in a different role and storytelling medium within the franchise.

In 2008, the hack-and-slash game, “The Force Unleashed,” was released and put you in the shoes of Darth Vader’s secret, and slightly evil force-wielding errand boy, Starkiller, who was tasked with wiping out the remaining Jedi after the events of “Revenge of the Sith.” Spending most of the game, killing Jedi and slicing up rookies, “Starkiller” was much more fitting for someone ripping the galaxy a new one, as opposed to the hero that would eventually save it.