Last year, Mark Hamill set off a flurry of speculation when he told Empire Magazine there was a big, last-minute alteration to the end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, that would’ve changed something about the then-upcoming Last Jedi. Now that the latter film is finally out, Hamill was able to spill the beans on what needed fixing.
Speaking to Chinese press ahead of the film’s release in the country, Hamill revealed that when Rey was walking up the Islands of Ahch-To to meet Luke for the first time, the former Jedi Master would’ve been surrounded by levitating boulders. Hamill, who at that point had already started preparing for his role in TLJ, learned about the rocks and had to call up director Rian Johnson to get them removed:
When we were doing [The Force Awakens], Rian said, ‘We might have boulders floating to show your Force emanating’, so I was led to believe that I still had the Force and it was really strong in me.
When I read [The Last Jedi] before [The Force Awakens] came out, I said ‘what?!” and called JJ [Abrams] or Rian [Johnson] to say, ‘Are you guys aware of this? Have you seen a cut? Is there floating boulders?’ And they said, ‘No, we caught that and we worked it all out.’
That would’ve looked cool of course, but it wouldn’t have made sense by the time we got to The Last Jedi, given that we learn early on in the movie that Luke’s traumatic journey inspired him to cut himself off from the Force altogether. It’s not until the climax of the movie that we see him reconnect to it, as he projects his presence to Crait to buy the troubled Resistance a chance to escape. So no floating rocks allowed, sadly!
[Mtime via Digital Spy]