Dave Filoni presented one of the biggest surprises in the Star Wars universe when Luke Skywalker made a cameo in The Mandalorian Season 2’s finale. Although there were reports of the Mark Hamill character’s appearance in the Disney+ series, it was treated as a high-profile secret by the Star Wars makers.
Luke Skywalker’s fantastic entry took the audience by surprise and raised a storm online. To maintain the element of surprise, the makers even kept the other cast members in the dark. But it looks like Mandalorian co-star Katee Sackhoff did not appreciate this lack of trust. The Bo-Katan Kryze actress immediately reached out to Dave Filoni after the episode aired.
Katee Sackhoff was angry at Dave Filoni for the Luke Skywalker surprise
The Mandalorian brought back the glorious days of the George Lucas franchise after both Prequel and Sequel trilogies did not do well among the fans and critics. However, the second season of the Pedro Pascal series featured one of the best moments when we saw a de-aged Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker entering through the smoking entrance.
Recently The Mandalorian actresses Katee Sackhoff and Ming-Na Wen sat on The Katee Sackhoff Show to discuss the scene. As both the stars discussed how the makers tried to keep it a secret, it was revealed that the Fennec Shand actress was not affected by the misdirection. But Sackhoff bought the crap and was enraged when a different version of the episode aired.
I didn’t know until I saw it. I immediately got angry and texted [Dave] Filoni saying I can’t believe you lied to me, and he asked if I was enjoying watching it and said ‘you’re welcome’.
Watch the full interview here:
While Katee Sackhoff expressed her frustration with the surprise, Ming-Na Wen shared that several hints suggested that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni were hiding something significant. She noted that the gloves, lightsaber, and a green-colored R2-D2 were enough to convince her that it was none other than the Original Trilogy protagonist from Tatooine.
The makers formulated an evil plan to not leak Luke Skywalker’s return
In the present pop culture scenario, it is undoubtedly very difficult to conceal information from the masses. The Marvel projects have time and again proved that nothing is safe in this age of social media. For all these reasons, The Mandalorian stars took some dire steps to keep the big reveal a secret.
The Mandalorian Season 2 suffered significantly when the appearance of Temuera Morrison’s Boba Fett and Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano was reported online. To prevent any more damage, the makers concealed Luke Skywalker’s return from the script as well as the cast. They intelligently resurrected an existing Star Wars Jedi Plo Koon to hide the big secret.
As revealed in Episode 2 of Season 2 of the behind-the-scenes documentary series Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian (via Screen Rant), the character from the Prequels Plo Koon was crafted as a red herring to deceive everyone in production. It was a clever move as Filoni’s fans knew that the Jedi killed in Order 66 was his favorite character. Even if it was leaked, the impact would have been nothing in comparison to Luke Skywalker’s return.
While Lucasfilm created fake images and VFX works for Plo Koon, Mark Hamill was separately bought on set to record his facial expressions while reciting the dialogue. It was incorporated into the series using deep fake technology on body double Matt Rugetti who was the man actually seen by the audience during the season finale.
The Mandalorian can be streamed on Disney+.
