How Luke Skywalker’s Return In ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ Was Kept Secret From Cast and Crew

When it was revealed The Mandalorian was set five years after the events of Return of the Jedi, there was one character fans were hoping to see again: Luke Skywalker. Speculation ran rife on whether Disney would hire Mark Hamill’s lookalike, Sebastien Stan for the role. While Stan didn’t get the gig, fans were treated to a CG version of a Hamill, that was just accurate enough to avoid the uncanny valley that plagues so many CG humans to this day. Improvements in his facial architecture aside in The Book of Boba Fett, Luke’s return in the final episode of The Mandalorian season 2 brought many fans to tears. Tears of delight that is.

Luke’s return in The Book of Boba Fett was even kept secret as showrunners Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau explained at Star Wars Celebration 2022. Keeping Luke’s involvement in the series required an elaborate–and costly ruse–to ensure nothing could be leaked intentionally or unintentionally. One has to assume that Filoni and Favreau are more concerned with actors accidentally ruining storylines like Tom Holland has been accused of, rather than deliberately ruining plotlines.

Filoni spoke of using a codename for Luke to fool the cast and crew, even Rosario Dawson who plays Ahsoka Tano across the interconnected Mandoverse. She never knew she was speaking to a CG Luke Skywalker when filming her scenes with him in The Book of Boba Fett. “She was in a scene with Luke because we kept calling him Plo Koon,” said Filoni.

Plo Koon was a Jedi master, who first appeared in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and served as a regular in the animated TV series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, in which he frequently interacted with Anakin Skywalker’s young padawan, Ahsoka Tano. 

“When we made that the code [name[, remember we thought, ‘Well that makes sense because people think that I would bring him back because people know I like that character, but we didn’t [bring him back],” said Filoni.

Favreau added that artwork and even a CG head were made of Plo Koon to fool the cast and crew. “We even had a CGI head for that character, so that when you saw the dailies or the editing room it looked like that was the character. We actually paid for visual effects that we didn’t use just to fool people who are working on the show.”

It was an additional cost that paid off. The episodes featuring Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett are the highest-rated episodes in both series.