Mark Hamill Shares a Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Film Set Memory with Fans
Mark Hamill shares a memory on Twitter that involves the iconic Star Wars: The Empire Strike Back Dagobah cave sequence. Read on for more.
Actor Mark Hamill, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy and voicing the Joker in various Batman media, including the DC animated universe, explained an iconic shot to fans on Twitter. Hamill revealed yesterday, how they shot the Dagobah vision sequence in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ where Darth Vader’s mask explodes to reveal Luke’s face. For the fans that might not remember the legendary scene in the film, this may jog your memory…
During Luke’s quest to become a Jedi on the planet Dagobah, Yoda tells Luke to enter a tree cave which is connected to the dark side and that he must go into the cave and see what he finds. Luke enters the cave and has a vision of a confrontation against the evil Darth Vader. Towards the end of his vision , he defeats Vader and slices off his head, only to realize that the face he sees within Vader’s destroyed mask is his own. The scene is supposed to reflect Luke’s own darkness and how he must overcome the face of true evil. When Luke sees his own face, it is a warning that if Luke battles Vader with no emotional control, he will become Vader himself, seduced by the Dark Side.
Over the years, some may have wondered how the special effects of Mark Hamill’s face inside the mask looked so real. Thanks to actor Mark Hamill, we now know the reason. Hamill gave the secret away on Twitter when a fan asked him about the scene.
It was my head protruding through an opening in the set floor as I stood below-My prop head was tested but rejected. https://t.co/10mUunERWB
— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) May 22, 2016
So the question is, how was Mark Hamill able to protrude his head through an opening in the set floor? Most likely, a simple horror film trick was used.
Large parts of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ Dagobah swamp set were elevated off the ground which would have allowed Hamill to hide below the floor while the camera zoomed in on his face inside the mask.
Watch Luke Skywalker face off against Darth Vader in the Dagobah cave:
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Source: Yahoo Movies
Wow. I didn’t realize this wasn’t obvious to everyone.
Same lol I figured this was how they did it from the start.
Cool. I kinda always wondered…
I already knew that. Pretty sure it’s come up before.
“Half the battle…knowing is…” – Yoda
http://www.comicscube.com/2014/10/battle-for-80s-part-3-impossible-choice.html
Where does ‘parachuting out of exploding planes’ play into that pie chart? I call shennanigans!
And the all-important shooting rifles from the hip while screaming “COOOOOOO-BRA!!!!!!”
Huh. I always thought they were yelling “Co-Bra”, like, Baroness and Lady Jay had to share one or something.
The golden age of cinema. When creating a scene required intuition and creativity. Now everything is just cgi…
So this has always bothered me. In an ideal test (was this one of his trials?) he wouldn’t have taken his saber and been cut down (but in a vision)? Like what we saw of Ezra in Rebels in the temple?
Or would the vision have been completely different? That’s my take on it anyways – if Luke had been calm enough, emotionally mature enough, and in control of himself enough to heed Yoda’s advice, he wouldn’t have had that particular vision as it speaks to his anger, impatience, and lack of self control.
Exactly
Agreed. The test wasn’t the fight. He’s literally shown that his fear and aggression will lead him to the dark side is he doesn’t learn to control them.
I remember reading somewhere that the cave becomes the incarnation of his fears. When Yoda tells him he doesn’t need his weapons he is actually telling him that he will only need his weapons if he brings them. If he didn’t bring any weapons, then it could have played out very differently
Yes, exactly my read on it too.
Yep.
This.
You take into an encounter only what you take with you – be it anger, fear, compassion etc…
A further interpretation is that it goes deeper than just the Dark Side angle. It isn’t just that he’ll fall to the dark side if he relies on anger and strength, it’s that going to the Dark Side is best-case-scenario of him relying on anger. Like, even IF he manages to be stronger than Vader, and even IF he overpowers Sidious, and IF he survives the whole ordeal, and he gets everything he wants, even then, he’ll still have lost his soul. So it isn’t just “Ooohhh this is bad!”, but it’s also just a realistic unveiling of the logical extreme of Luke’s course of action. I more think that Luke’s realizing that fighting Vader on Vader’s terms is a lose-lose situation (which by the way, I think is more how Luke and Anakin think/behave, in realistic pros-cons view).
Which makes no sense since Obi-Wan and Yoda were basically training Luke to kill his own Father and didn’t seem to have any kind of reservations at all about it.
“You mean sacrifice Han and Leia”
“If you honor what they fight for……yes!”
Funny. I never thought it looked real enough to have been done on set. I didn’t question that it was Hamill’s real face, but it seemed oddly positioned in the mask. Even now, looking at the still shot, the lighting seems odd. I assumed it was some kind of composite shot.
The full set was elevated so that Frank Oz could operate Yoda
I honestly thought it was a cast and was amazed how real it looked for it’s time.
I always thought it looked really fake. Lol.
Another reason why I think that Kylo and the Knights of Ren are not actually there with Luke and Rey. It is a vision, and this current sequence is bringing back Mark’s memories of Luke’s vision in the cave on Dagobah.