Mark Hamill has a lot of feelings regarding Star Wars: The Last Jedi which he has talked about at length. However, his feelings about one particular scene in the film are so strong that he can't watch it. That scene, as you can probably guess, is the moment in the film where Luke Skywalker says goodbye to his sister Leia. In the movie, it's Luke who is saying farewell, but following the death of Carrie Fisher, Hamill admits that the moment is too much for him, at least for right now. According to Hamill...
I can't watch that scene. It's just, you know, takes me out of the movie completely. I'll get over it, but she'll be forever missed and she's irreplaceable.
Carrie Fisher's death, which followed the filming of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but was prior to the movie's release, meant that the moviegoing experience was going to be an emotional one for a lot of fans. While no changes were made to the finished film in order to give Leia a "goodbye" moment, there are a couple of points which, just by happenstance, work very well to give fans an emotional farewell. The greatest of these is when Luke and Leia are finally reunited. Luke appears on Crait at the point when the Resistance needs him most. Before Luke goes out to face Kylo Ren, he takes a moment with his sister, he apologizes for what has happened to her son, and gives her a kiss on the head.
There were certainly some wet eyes in movie theaters at that moment, given the meta-context of the situation. People watching the film again at home now are probably getting emotional all over again. Of course, while some of us just felt like we knew Carrie Fisher, people like Mark Hamill actually did know her, and called her friend. It's not surprising the actor tells ET he has trouble watching that scene even now.
He's also right that Carrie Fisher will be forever missed. The Star Wars franchise promises to keep going into the future which means that Princess Leia will always be a character of importance to pop culture. Whatever way Star Wars: Episode IX comes up with to explain Leia's absence is likely to feel incomplete, and the fact that we all know she was supposed to be there is going to leave a hole in that movie that will never be filled. We'll always wonder what would have happened if she'd been there.
Someday Mark Hamill will be able to watch Luke say goodbye to Leia, and someday we'll all watch it without it hurting quite so much. Today is not that day.
