One thing I was looking forward to in The Force Awakens was seeing Luke and Han together again.
But as anyone who has seen the film will know, this didn't happen and will never happen. (On second thought, "never" might be too definitive. But there are now, ahem, major obstacles to overcome before Luke and Han can share a scene together.)
Has either Mark Hamill or Harrison Ford shared an opinion on the fact that they didn't get a chance to act together in The Force Awakens?
At Salt Lake Comic Con Hamill says this:
Question: What were you thinking during that one scene at the end of Episode 7? That one masterful beautiful thirty seconds.
Hamill: My only suggestion was let's say that Luke doesn't come into the story until Episode 8 and then that moment will be a big surprise. Well that was my idea. I thought, if you advertise Harrison, Carrie, and me that is a reasonably implied reunion of some sort. And if we don't give them plus with what happens to Harrison's character, if I turn around and the audience goes "arggg" like it is a big gimmick I'm the one with egg on my face JJ, not you or Kathy. So I was just worried it wouldn't work. It thought it was a great surprise, I love surprise endings like that, but I just wasn't sure of how to present it.
Hamill: When I said okay I'd come back and do the movie. Because I'm thinking, it's going to be all of us or none of us. And I wasn't sure we should come back because we had a beginning a middle and an end. And it was perfect because it should be about the new generation. But I don't have to worry because, Harrison's not going to do this. He's way too rich, and cynical, and stopped caring decades ago.
So first of all he said he didn't think the movies should be about the original cast. And because they were planning on killing Han Solo, that he felt he shouldn't even be in the movie at all.
On December 18, 2017, Rolling Stone published an interview with Mark Hamill regarding The Last Jedi. The interviewer asked him about the rationale behind, and his feelings on, having only a very brief contribution at the very end of The Force Awakens. Here's what he had to say:
First of all, once I came around to what it was going to be, it made complete sense. If I were in the position of a J.J. Abrams or a Rian and thinking, "I've gotta close out the Han Solo story, I've gotta introduce this whole new set of characters, I've gotta set up this whole new conflict," wouldn't it be much easier just to push me to the next chapter? I did regret maybe not having the three of us on-screen together one more time. But again, at times, I'd say to Rian, "We gotta think of what the audience wants." And he'd say, "No, we've gotta think of what we want." Which is a learning process for me.
(Source)
So like many fans, Hamill laments the lack of an on-screen reunion of the original characters, but he also recognizes that fan service is not necessarily in the best interests of developing a story.
