Mark Hamill's Car Accident Led To The Wampa Attack - A Star Wars Legend Explained
Early on in "Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back," Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) ends up in a rough spot. While patrolling the outskirts of the Rebellion's Hoth base, he and his Tauntaun are attacked by a vicious Wampa. The hulking creature drags them both back to its ice cave, feasting upon the creature as Luke hangs from the ceiling unconscious with wounds across his face. With his trusty lightsaber in hand, the Jedi-to-be narrowly survives and is returned to Echo Base by Han Solo (Harrison Ford), where his injuries are tended to in the medical bay.
For years, rumors have persisted that this sequence of events was influenced by a real-life incident. In January 1977, Hamill was involved in a car accident that required partial facial reconstruction. Thus, this news led to the idea that the Wampa attack scene was spawned to explain the change in Luke's facial features between "Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope" and "The Empire Strikes Back." According to "Star Wars" mastermind George Lucas, though, this wasn't the case. "My feeling was some time had passed, they've been in the Rebellion fighting, that kind of thing, so the change was justifiable," he explained on the Blu-ray commentary for "The Empire Strikes Back." He notes that the Wampa attack was included more so to build suspense than to justify Luke's altered appearance.
While Lucas' comments may seem to put this rumor to bed, the story doesn't end here.
The story behind the wampa scene isn't totally cut-and-dry
In the same "Empire Strikes Back" Blu-ray commentary where George Lucas discussed the Wampa attack scene, the late, great Carrie Fisher touched on it as well. Rather than corroborating Lucas' claim regarding the moment's supposed connection to Mark Hamill's car accident, she told a different tale. "Miraculously, his teeth didn't shatter. But his nose did. He had to have some of his ear put into his nose. So they adjusted the film with this snow monster to right away in the movie scratch his face to account for his looks being different," she recalled.
As for Hamill, he hasn't made any major claims on this situation, though he has noted that the minds behind "The Empire Strikes Back" did make use of his accident scars. "He used a lot of, like, the real scars to build upon," Hamill said of the prosthetic work for Luke post-wampa attack during an interview (via DewbackRider on YouTube). All of this is to say that the lore behind the Wampa attack isn't as simple as one might think. Though the scene likely didn't come to fruition because of Hamill's car accident, that's not to say that those involved in "The Empire Strikes Back" didn't weave the actor's injuries into the narrative.
Regardless of the rationale behind their creation, Luke Skywalker's Wampa attack and subsequent escape have undeniably gone down as some of the most gripping scenes in "Star Wars" franchise history.