Mark Hamill Gets Up Close With His Own ‘Star Wars’ Legacy at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

Few franchises have a relationship with physical memorabilia quite like ‘Star Wars’. Fifty years on from the original film, the props, costumes and models that once sat in warehouses and studio archives now have a permanent, purpose-built home in Los Angeles. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, created by George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, celebrated its official Opening Night on September 19, with the public opening set for September 22.

The guest list for that celebration read like an awards-season wish list. Oprah Winfrey, Harrison Ford, Michael B. Jordan, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Steven Spielberg and Samuel L. Jackson were among those who turned out. Amid all that star power, one attendee managed to steal a little of the spotlight without saying a word to the press.

That attendee was Mark Hamill, who was caught posing with a life-sized Luke Skywalker figure at the Lucas Museum, joking that the figure looks taller than him, according to TheWrap. The clip, which TheWrap shared on X, shows the actor lining up next to his own younger, frozen-in-time counterpart while cameras flash around him. The 11-second video shows Hamill striking the same pose as the Tatooine-robed figure beside him, and it quickly racked up tens of thousands of views online.

The moment lands differently once you know how the figure came to exist. The original 1977 Luke costume was not in the museum’s archives, so the studio behind the figures was commissioned to build a carefully aged, faithful replica of what Hamill wore in the film. That replica’s costume, belt and boots were fabricated by Adam Karolian, with distressing and aging handled by Patrick Louie and Max Frey.

The work came from Tom Spina Studios, and the scale of the job was considerable. The studio produced 11 hyper-realistic silicone characters and 2 additional custom mannequins for the museum. Those figures include Luke, Leia, Darth Vader and C-3PO, standing together as though waiting to board a flight.

Hamill’s cheeky height joke is a fitting reaction to that level of detail. Seeing a silicone likeness of your 1970s self, complete with a weathered farm-boy look, would be a surreal experience for anyone, let alone the actor who has spent nearly 5 decades tied to the character.

The figures sit inside a much larger showcase. The inaugural ‘Star Wars in Motion’ exhibition spans the Lucas Archives from 1971 to 2012, part of more than 1,300 objects across 30 galleries. It includes vehicle designs, props, costumes and illustrations from the first six ‘Star Wars’ films, including Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder and the first physical build of General Grievous’s Wheel Bike from ‘Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith’.

Still, anyone expecting a pure fan shrine may be surprised. ‘Star Wars’ occupies only about 7% of the museum, with artworks by Frida Kahlo and Norman Rockwell, photographs by Gordon Parks and comics by Frank Miller sharing the space. Two theaters also screen everything from early silent movies to Lucas’ own student films and ‘Cowboy Bebop’.

Critics have noted that the collection is broader than its headline attraction suggests. Nerdist’s review pushed back on the idea that this is simply “the Star Wars museum,” calling that label reductive, while acknowledging that seeing screen-used costumes and props going back 50 years to ‘Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope’ is hard not to find emotional.

For fans, though, the image of Hamill mimicking his own younger double may end up being one of the defining snapshots of the opening weekend. It captures what the museum is really about: the strange, affectionate loop between the people who made stories and the objects that outlived them. With the doors opening to the public on September 22, plenty of visitors will likely try to recreate the pose themselves.