WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 2, Episode 8, "Chapter 16: The Rescue," streaming now on Disney+.
The Mandalorian Season 2 finale, "Chapter 16: The Rescue," featured a surprise cameo by none other than Luke Skywalker, confirming the theory that the legendary Jedi Master would be the one to answer Grogu's Force signal from Tython. Still, as exciting as it was to learn what Luke was up to five years after the events of Return of the Jedi, it would've been better if the character has been played by the Winter Soldier himself, Sebastian Stan.
Given that Mark Hamill is too old to convincingly play Luke in The Mandalorian timeline, the character was portrayed by Max Lloyd-Jones during his fight with the Dark Troopers and then Hamill with CGI face when Luke meets Din Djarin and Grogu. Problem is, many viewers found this visual effect to be unsettling and creepy, which detracted from their joy at seeing Luke show up. This isn't the first time the franchise has landed in hot water for using CGI faces to bring back a character, either, with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story being similarly criticized for doing the same thing with Leia and Grand Moff Tarkin.
However, many fans had advocated for Stan to play a young Luke, based on how much the actor resembles a younger Hamill. Naturally, it helps that Stan is a well-respected actor who's proven he can play a wide range of characters in films like The Martian and Destroyer, in addition to his many Marvel Cinematic Universe appearances as Bucky Barnes both before and after Bucky's evolution into the Winter Soldier. He would've also been the second fan-pick for a Star Wars role to find their way onto The Mandalorian after fans successfully pushed to get Rosario Dawson cast as Ahsoka Tano.
Beyond all that, it would've been more enjoyable to see a version of Luke with an actual face and not a CGI one on The Mandalorian. To be fair, de-aging CGI has come a long way over the last decade and has even been used by non-franchise films like The Irishman in recent years. At the same time, many people feel it's still a ways off from being convincing and tends to provoke feelings of revulsion in viewers, as a result of what's known as the "uncanny valley" effect. Obviously, Stan wouldn't have been a perfect match to play a young Luke, but he also wouldn't have been off-putting the way The Mandalorian's version of the character was.
Last year's Doctor Sleep took a different approach in bringing back younger versions of famous characters when it recast actors who're physically similar to the stars of The Shining to play young Jack, Wendy and Danny Torrance. The results were far better received than any of the recent uses of CGI de-aging on actors and suggest that Stan would've gone over equally well, had he played Luke on The Mandalorian. Of course, many people have far stronger feelings about who should play Luke than characters from The Shining, but there's enough online support for Stan to suggest his casting might've avoided provoking a huge controversy.
Recruiting Stan to play a young Luke in The Mandalorian would've also been similar to what Lucasfilm did when it hired Alden Ehrenreich to portray a younger Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Admittedly, in that case, the original plan was for Ehrenreich to play the character in multiple films and not for a single scene, so that may explain why The Mandalorian's creatives didn't go that route with Luke's cameo in Season 2. That said, if young Luke is going to continue showing up in future Star Wars projects, Lucasfilm would do well to consider having Hamill pass his lightsaber on to someone like Stan.
Created by Jon Favreau, The Mandalorian stars Pedro Pascal, with guest stars Gina Carano, Carl Weathers and Giancarlo Esposito. Seasons 1 and 2 are streaming on Disney+.