Mark Hamill

So, contractually, Mark Hamill was required to maintain his beard for shooting ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi,’ so what does it mean now that he has shaved his face right before JJ Abrams is about to begin shooting ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ in England? We first learned about the shave from Hamill’s Twitter account, where he posted a picture of himself with a new Joker cane he received from Sideshow Collectibles (right), and since then the internet has been rampant with speculation about what this could mean for the man’s involvement in the final chapter of the latest ‘Star Wars’ trilogy.


Many of us had taken for granted that Luke Skywalker would return as a Force ghost to teach/ help Rey in the final movie, but this seems to hint that Luke may not even BE IN THE MOVIE, which would mean we would not have any of the original three in ‘Episode IX.’ Others are guessing that perhaps Hamill shaved so they could do an extended flashback scene with him in the movie, as digitally it is easier to add a beard than remove one (*cough*Henry Cavill*cough*Justice League*), so they might have wanted him clean shaven so they could digitally make him look younger in the flashbacks, knowing they would digitally re-add the beard onto his face for any scenes in the present.

Another wild theory is that Luke’s Force Ghost will look more like his younger, clean-shaven self, similar to how Anakin Skywalker’s Force Ghost (after George Lucas forced his ridiculous changes on the Blu-Ray and DVDs) looked just like his younger, Hayden Christian-y self, instead of his older self. But that one would be a stretch as one could say Anakin reverted to what he looked like before he fell to the dark side. Luke was clearly still a Jedi operating on the light side of the Force when he died, so there would be no reason for him to “revert” to his younger self, other than vanity. So at this point, Hamill shaving the beard could mean anything, and it might even be a deliberate ploy to confuse the fans concocted by Hamill and Abrams (which I would love), but until we get more information about the film, we’ll just have to sit back and speculate.

Feel free to share any theories of your own in the comments below!