Over 40 years ago, Star Wars: A New Hope hit the scene, introducing audiences to the war between the Rebel Alliance and Galactic Empire, and pushing Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker on the path to becoming a Jedi and hero in a galaxy far, far away. When we first meet Luke in A New Hope, he's with his Uncle Owen inspecting the droids the Jawas have brought to the Lars homestead, but that wasn't how he was originally supposed to be introduced.

This deleted scene from A New Hope brought Luke Skywalker into play by having him witness the battle between Darth Vader's Star Destroyer and Princess Leia's ship from Tatooine's surface. He then goes on to hang out with his friends at Tosche Station. As Mark Hamill sees it, removing this scene from the first Star Wars movie removes a significant chunk of the character's motivation. In Hamill's words:

`There are a couple of things that are good for the character. No. 1, he is ridiculed roundly by his peers. So he's not particularly cool or popular. Koo Stark is the only other female actor in the movie ... and she calls me 'Wormie.' So I am not popular, and then I bump into Biggs Darklighter, played by Garrick Hagon, and I go 'Wow!' You can see we're good friends. He's dressed in an Imperial uniform and I'm going, 'Wow! That's so great! I can't wait until I can get off the dump of a planet and join with you.' And he takes me outside and says, 'Luke, as soon as I get the chance, I am going to jump ship and join the Rebels.' The only reason that is interesting to me is that Luke has no political persuasion. He thinks it's great he is in the Empire! Luke wants to be in the Empire if it will get him off the farm! So he is completely pure in that he is not politically motivated in any way, shape or form.`

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The absence of Luke Skywalker's introduction in 'A New Hope' continues to be a real sticking point for Mark Hamill. The actor explains why the character's cut #StarWars introduction was so pivotal, at the link in bio.

A post shared by Hollywood Reporter (@hollywoodreporter) on Jun 30, 2020 at 7:30am PDT

While Mark Hamill understands why this scene was cut from the A New Hope, as he sees it, Luke Skywalker being introduced in this way was more organic than what we got in the finalized version of A New Hope.