George Lucas says the Wampa scene wasn’t written to explain Hamill’s appearance in ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ but it helped
This is where the story gets hazy.
In the opening scene of «The Empire Strikes Back,» Skywalker’s face is scratched after being attacked by a Wampa, which digs its claws into his face and then drags Skywalker and his Tauntaun back to its cave. George Lucas says the Wampa scene helped justify Hamill’s new look to viewers, but suggests the scene wasn’t written because of his accident.
«At the end of ‘A New Hope’ he had been in a car accident and I knew Mark was going to look a little different than he was in the first film,» said Lucas in the Blu-ray commentary of «The Empire Strikes Back.»
«But my feeling was some time had past, they’ve been in the Rebellion fighting, that kind of thing, so the change was justifiable. There’s a scene in the film where Mark gets beat up by the monster , which helps even more, but that wasn’t really the meaning of why we wrote the monster in the beginning. We needed something to keep the film suspenseful at the beginning while the Empire is looking for them.»
Mark Hamill has been quiet about the whole thing through the years, but said the makeup department built on his real scars for his film appearance
For the most part Hamill has been quiet about the origin of the Wampa scene, but this interview with the actor posted on YouTube in 2014 does indicate that the make-up department on «Empire» did play on his scars from the crash.
Briefly describing what he remembers from the accident, he then said: «they used a lot of the real scars to build upon» the make up used for the scene.
This is not Hamill admitting that the Wampa scene was written due to how his face looked after the accident, but it’s interesting to hear that his scars from the crash were on the mind of the make-up department.
Watch the Wampa attack scene, followed by Skywalker escaping the Wampa’s cave in the version that showed in theaters when «The Empire Strikes Back» was released 40 years ago:
However, Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia, remembers things differently
A shot of Luke Skywalker’s face being attended to that was cut out of the film.
Lucasfilm
«I was still shooting ‘Star Wars’ when Mark got into the car accident,» Fisher said in the commentary. «It was a really bad accident. Miraculously his teeth didn’t shatter. But his nose did. He had to have some of his ear put into his nose. So they adjusted the film with this snow monster to right away in the movie scratch his face to account for his looks being different.»
Revealed in the book, «The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,» a scene was filmed after Skywalker is saved from the Wampa attack where his damaged face is attended by a droid (see photo above).
That portion was cut out, though it seems clear Lucas and «Empire» director Irvin Kershner were working out how far they wanted to go to address Hamill’s restructured face.
Mark Hamill got in an accident after filming ‘A New Hope’
Speaking to Gossip Magazine in 1978 for the release of «Corvette Summer,» which was released between «A New Hope» and «The Empire Strikes Back,» Hamill spoke about the accident.
«What happened was that I was on the wrong freeway,» Hamill said. «I was way out in the sticks somewhere and there were no cars and no traffic, thank God. I was going about 65-70 mph… I was speeding, going too fast… and what happened, I think, was that I tried to negotiate an off-ramp and lost control, tumbled over, and went off the road. I fractured my nose and my cheek.»
(L-R) Mark Hamill in «A New Hope» and «The Empire Strikes Back.»
Lucasfilm
Hamill also said in the interview that the next day he was supposed to do pick-up shots for «A New Hope» of scenes on Tatooine. This led to director George Lucas having to use a double, though the shots were for scenes where you wouldn’t see Hamill’s face.
So Hamill’s accident did not affect the completion of «A New Hope,» but the question is, did it alter «The Empire Strikes Back?»
