Few famous people seem to have navigated the rocky waters of celebrity—and especially online celebrity, where you’re always just one bad Instagram caption away from disaster—better than Mark Hamill. Having settled, seemingly comfortably, into his role as one of the elder statesmen of the science fiction and animation worlds, the Star Wars star fills his Twitter feed with cheerfully cranky comments, fun videos, attacks on the dumber excesses of our current presidential administration, and generally pleasant interactions with fans. So it’s not entirely surprising to see Hamill post a letter this weekend, expressing his long-running appreciation for all the people his role as “Luke Starkiller” has brought into his life. But it is, you know, nice.
Hamill—who also recently sent out his heartfelt condolences to the family of Andrew Jack, the Last Jedi actor who died earlier this week—addresses fans both young and old, thanking them for their dedication and enthusiasm to the franchise. Among other things, the letter reads as a gentle farewell to the series for the actor himself, which also isn’t a major shock; The Rise Of Skywalker marked a pretty definitive endpoint for his parts of the saga, regardless of what Disney figures out what to do with these movies next. (That being said, Hamill’s also someone who’s semi-“retired” from playing the Joker, his other signature role, more than once, so who can really say?) This being Twitter, the first replies to Hamill’s incredibly compassionate letter are, of course, people complaining about how Star Wars has been ruined by some decision or other along the last 40 years, but that’s pretty much just the cost of doing business on the internet. The sentiment itself still remains, and if you don’t feel a little twinge in your throat at that last “May the Force be with you,” well, you’re made of sterner midichlorians than us.