Stephen Colbert Won’t Let Mark Hamill Into the Mos Eisley Cantina on The Late Show

Colbert was living every Star Wars fan’s dream when he cooked up a “lost scene” from the movies starring Luke Skywalker himself.

Since the days of The Colbert Report, Colbert has been forthright about his own lifelong geekery (his dedication to J.R.R. Tolkien’s works is such that he can read Elvish and scored a cameo in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug). So he seems pretty damned excited to be hosting one of science fiction’s luminaries on his show… and to insert himself into a sketch with guest Mark Hamill as Luke. I mean, who among us wouldn’t seize such an opportunity?

Colbert manages to keep his cool in the sketch, and Hamill is wonderfully game as he puts on Luke’s costume from way back in the New Hope era and tries to convince Colbert’s Randy, “the keeper of the guest list of the Mos Eisley Cantina,” that he needs to get inside to escape some stormtroopers. What follows are a lot of Star Wars in-jokes and riffs, like Luke whining about how he also has to go into Tosche station to pick up some power converters.

Or when Luke takes the guest list and reads who’s on it: “Well, these are all fake names! General Grievous? Count Dooku? Jar-Jar Binks? Now that one’s got to be a mistake.” (cue applause)

Or this:

Luke: You never heard of me? I blew up the Death Star! Twice!

Randy: I’m not really into scifi.

Luke: It’s not fi, it actually happened. And it’s not sci, it’s more like a … kind of a space western.

Randy: That’ll never work.

But the best joke is when Luke goes full-tilt diva: “Look, I didn’t want to do this, but do you know who my father is?”

Now that I think about it, Randy really should have just asked for Luke’s I.D. I mean, the kid was all of 19 during A New Hope. He really had no business being inside such a wretched hive of scum and villainy. What were you thinking, Ben? A guy could get his arm cut off in there.

If you have a hankering to see more Hamill and less Luke, here’s his interview with Colbert thereafter. You’re gonna want to watch it for all of the voices that he breaks out:

(via The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, image: screengrab)

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Kaila Hale-Stern

Kaila Hale-Stern (she/her) is a content director, editor, and writer who has been working in digital media for more than fifteen years. She started at TMS in 2016. She loves to write about TV—especially science fiction, fantasy, and mystery shows—and movies, with an emphasis on Marvel. Talk to her about fandom, queer representation, and Captain Kirk. Kaila has written for io9, Gizmodo, New York Magazine, The Awl, Wired, Cosmopolitan, and once published a Harlequin novel you'll never find.

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