Star Wars Fan Suggests Casting Harry Styles As Young Luke Skywalker

Highlights

Fans suggest recasting young Luke Skywalker, sparking debate online over fan casting choices like Harry Styles.
AI-assisted Luke Skywalker CGI in Star Wars shows lacked the touch of a real actor, prompting recasting discussions.
The proposed casting of Harry Styles as Luke Skywalker faced almost universal disapproval due to his acting abilities and suitability.

The Star Wars franchise bringing back a young Luke Skywalker on its Disney Plus shows has stirred some interest in recasting the iconic role for future appearances, and one fan online has given their suggestion on who could take on the challenge to the overt disapproval of others.

Star Wars has grown as a franchise since the original film trilogy. However, its original protagonist, Mark Hamill’s iconic Luke Skywalker, has stayed relevant in more recent media, appearing as an older, less optimistic recluse in the sequel trilogy to mixed reactions from Star Wars: The Last Jedi fans. More recently, the character has returned in the Disney Plus shows The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett. This younger Luke Skywalker comes to fans via a combination of CGI, stand-ins, and a sophisticated artificial neural network trained on old clips of Hamill’s voice.

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While the cameos were certainly enjoyed, the consensus is that these AI-assisted Luke Skywalker appearances in Star Wars shows were missing an actor’s touch, leading to online discussion about potentially recasting the role with a younger star and a barrage of fan casting by way of edits and social media posts. One such post from Reddit user Timothy7475 would meet with almost universal disapproval after they shared on the site’s r/StarWars subreddit that they believed that English singer and former One Direction member Harry Styles would be a good fit for Star Wars‘ most important role. The post, titled “Hear me out, harry styles as a younger Luke Skywalker. Like,you can kinda see it,” originally featured an image of Styles. Moderators have since removed the post.

Other fans were quick to shoot down the idea, with the responses filled with nearly universal disapproval for the casting, despite a few commenters conceding that Styles did look the part. While many of the top comments are simply variations of “No Way,” some fans were a bit more creative with their responses, with one going so far as to suggest that implementing that casting would turn them to the Dark Side of the Force. While fans have made several unorthodox suggestions for the role, including a Star Wars Deepfake that imagines Sebastian Stan as Luke, this particular hypothetical seems to be the most unpopular.

It’s easy to see why Star Wars fans would be thinking up a recast, with even casual viewers noting that Luke’s voice sounded inexplicably strange in the Book of Boba Fett and the character’s visual appearance striking many as uncanny. While no suggestion will ever receive universal approval, Styles seems to be viewed as completely unsuitable across the board. Despite having the looks for the role, many fans cited a myriad of potential problems that ring true, including acting ability, familiarity with the original performance, and even Styles’ celebrity status distracting from the iconic role. In truth, the star himself likely has zero interest in such a role, and no one at Disney would even extend a casting invite, as he has a role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Eros, similar to Stan’s place as the Winter Soldier. As the commenters insist, the looks don’t matter so much as the ability and availability.

In the end, Star Wars fans will always have wildly different ideas on who fits what role, but a more official search might be close at hand. Since Mark Hamill may finally be done playing Luke Skywalker, these discussions might need to begin at Lucasfilm. With Disney not looking likely to let up on the Star Wars franchise anytime soon, especially on the streaming front, a younger face for the savior of the galaxy far, far away might be needed sooner rather than later.

The Star Wars franchise is currently available for streaming on Disney Plus.

Star Wars

Star Wars is a multimedia franchise created by George Lucas and Lucasfilm Ltd with the 1977 motion picture. The science fiction franchise follows the adventures of characters (both humanoid and alien) in outer space, including those who can wield a mystical power known as the Force. Since the release of the original trilogy movies, the franchise has expanded to include multiple films and branched out to other mediums like comics, video games, TV shows, theme park attractions, and more. The IP and Lucasfilm were sold to Disney in 2012.