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How the Charles Manson Murders Changed Luke Skywalker’s Name in ‘Star Wars’
Mark Hamill will forever be remembered for playing Luke Skywalker, the main protagonist from 1977’s Star Wars, but according to him, the character came very close to being known by another name. As Hamill revealed in a tweet from 2020, George Lucas actually had to reshoot the scene in which Luke rescues Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) because he’d originally introduced himself as Luke Starkiller:
May The 24 Be My Age When We Had To Reshoot The Imprisoned Princess Scene In #StarWars Because The First Time We Filmed It I Said: "I'm Luke Starkiller, I'm Here To Rescue You."#TrueStory pic.twitter.com/FVJiwxpONL
— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) May 24, 2020
After HuffPost picked up the story and erroneously reported that Hamill botched the line, Hamill clarified that the scene was redone on account of Luke’s name getting changed at the last minute:
This article states we reshot the rescue of Leia scene because I "botched" my line. In fact, we had to redo it weeks later, because my name was changed to Skywalker AFTER we did it the 1st time (when my name was still Starkiller). #TrueFunFact https://t.co/ubcWztJs47
— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) May 26, 2020
As for the reason Lucas made an adjustment like that so far into production, the director had previously addressed the issue himself in J.W. Rinzler’s The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film. “That I did because I thought a lot of people were confusing [Luke] with someone like Charles Manson,” said Lucas. “It had very unpleasant connotations.”
If you’re not clear on why Lucas would’ve felt that way, Manson was responsible for orchestrating the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969, which resulted in the deaths of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate. Then, less than a year before principal photography began on Star Wars, Manson Family member “Squeaky” Fromme was arrested for the attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford.
For his part, Hamill wasn’t thrilled with the name change initially, mainly due to the fact that Skywalker sounded a bit too close to “flyswatter.” “I was so used to Starkiller, which had a little macho in it, which I thought the character could use,” he explained.
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