In the same “Empire Strikes Back” Blu-ray commentary where George Lucas discussed the Wampa attack scene, the late, great Carrie Fisher touched on it as well. Rather than corroborating Lucas’ claim regarding the moment’s supposed connection to Mark Hamill’s car accident, she told a different tale. “Miraculously, his teeth didn’t shatter. But his nose did. He had to have some of his ear put into his nose. So they adjusted the film with this snow monster to right away in the movie scratch his face to account for his looks being different,” she recalled.
As for Hamill, he hasn’t made any major claims on this situation, though he has noted that the minds behind “The Empire Strikes Back” did make use of his accident scars. “He used a lot of, like, the real scars to build upon,” Hamill said of the prosthetic work for Luke post-wampa attack during an interview (via DewbackRider on YouTube). All of this is to say that the lore behind the Wampa attack isn’t as simple as one might think. Though the scene likely didn’t come to fruition because of Hamill’s car accident, that’s not to say that those involved in “The Empire Strikes Back” didn’t weave the actor’s injuries into the narrative.
Regardless of the rationale behind their creation, Luke Skywalker’s Wampa attack and subsequent escape have undeniably gone down as some of the most gripping scenes in “Star Wars” franchise history.
