It was fairly fair to bet that Jedi was going to appear on the last episode of Am Mandalorian Season 2. Back in “Chapter 14: The Tragedy,” Grogu was accompanied by a sighting stone on the planet Tython, and any Jedi in a field would have come to look for the tyke small. But did you see sin Jedi showing up in the end? MASSIVE PAST SPOILERS THIS WORLD, but yes… Luke Skywalker appeared. But with a bit of digital chicanery, you might be wondering: who played Luke Skywalker on it Am Mandalorian?
A bit of a Mando recap, first, in case you missed the program (and if so, why are you reading this article? Shame on you!). After being locked on the bridge at Moff Gideon’s Imperial Light Cruiser (Giancarlo Esposito), Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and company were held down by a platoon of dark, unstable robotic soldiers. Earlier in the program, one Trooper had almost knocked Mando down for the count; so with a dozen of them, it was clear that it was the end of the line.
That is, until X-Wing became very familiar with the ship. Out he stepped into a Jedi with a hood, dressed in black. As the blurry pictures slowly unfolded, this Jedi was not Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), whom we met a few events back; this was someone different. Someone with an image green light. Someone with one hand.
And after defeating the Dark Troopers, it was revealed that figure was only Luke Skywalker, aka the farm boy who saved the constellation. At this stage of the timeline, about five-ish a year after the end The Jedi return, Luke just gets around setting up a Jedi school that Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) later destroys in a state of rage before he enters the First Order and kicks Star Wars: The army is waking up. Meaning if you’re worried about Grogu doing his particular case, don’t worry: it’s about ten years or so until anything bad goes down.
Get out of the way, let’s get back to our first question … Since you’re not a dumbo, you may have realized that, that’s Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker on Am Mandalorian; but it is a digital version of it, covered on someone else’s face. Credits refer to Max Lloyd Jones as “Double for Jedi,” although TV viewers may know him better as Tom from the hit series When the heart cried, or Noah on it Turned at birth. Lloyd Jones is no stranger to digital duplication, either: he played Blue Eyes in War for Planet of the Apes.
So the slightly more complex response is, as before, Lucasfilm used a version of Mark Hamill that was to digital age and applied it to the body of another actor, aka Max Lloyd Jones. The studio has previously used this technology to create a younger version of Carrie Fisher – twice: once at the end Rogue One; the second time during flashback Rise of Skywalker. Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin was also digitally created Rogue One, to, uh, less than tasty results.
Despite controversy over the approach, Mark Hamill backed the idea back in 2018… Although he expected it to be used later, not as long as it is still very much alive. . “Well I already said to my family ‘Absolutely – toes! ‘”Hamill told the Radio Times.
In the same interview, Hamill seemed very open to the idea that Luke would redesign, and even praised Sebastian Stan, or Jacob Tremblay. However, it is clear that Lucasfilm decided to go the route of growing older, using a combo of Hamill ‘s voice (it’ s in the beliefs, people, come on) and Lloyd Jones’ body .
On the other hand, R2-D2? That’s all, baby.
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