Inspired by the “Why do people hate Return of the Jedi” thread. I honestly do not understand why there is such a hatred of Mark Hamill. I’ve always kind of like the guy, and have always been a “Luke over Han” kind of person myself.
He’s whiny in some scenes, because he’s supposed to be whiny. I don’t see how that’s a criticism. He’s an annoyed teen because he wanted to go to Taschi Station and pick up some power converters. Why is that so horrible? It’s actually pretty realistic so far as I can tell, or at least a reasonable part of the character. He appears to have the most character development by far in the movies, and seems to go the furthest to not play a grossly simple archetype.
I don’t have any problem with him. Son of the Chosen One and all that, don’t ya know.
I think he may have made some questionable carreer choices other than SW, which has left him as a B star and not a megastar like Ford (is or was, you choose).
No complaints from me. He was fine as Luke, he does an excellent Joker, he was decent as the Trickster, his comic-book mockumentary was fun, and he had the cool sense to make fun of himself on The Muppet Show during the height of his Luke Skywalker fame.
Would that all celebrities could handle themselves with such quiet, wry aplomb.
“I’m resigned to the fact that, for the rest of my life, I’ve now got ‘Property of Lucasfilm’ tattooed on my ass.”
–Mark Hamill
I don’t hate Mark Hamill. I would have liked to see him do better movies. I think he’s actually just your basic jobbing actor doing his best, which is fair enough, admirable even. He seems to be a tad wooden, but then I only saw him in Village of the Damned, playing a spooky priest who didn’t move much.
Maybe people hate him next to Harrison Ford. But the problem there is that Ford is just major star material, serious A-grade plutonium. All he has to do is raise a wry eyebrow and half of Hollywood want to hire him. It’s not Hamill’s fault but maybe people subconsciously resent his having the “starring” role in Star Wars.
If you ask me, having someone of Ford’s quality in an almost-sidekick role is what made the movie. You couldn’t get that again in a million years, George, and you know it.
I did almost hate Hamill, actually, for his role in Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back. It was just agonisingly contrived. I can think of about a million other ways to do a Star Wars gag, and they’re all funnier. In Clerks all that happened was they talked about Star Wars, and that was funny, because that’s what people do, they talk about Star Wars. In J&SBSB, they wheel on Hamill as some kind of pseudo-comic-book-space-hero (but we know it’s really him, right kids?) and he gets his hand cut off. Cue much mugging to the camera. “Oh, not again!”
That was it, that was the whole gag. I could have written better than that on the back of my bus ticket. In fact I just have. This post is better than that gag. Seriously.
Still, at least he just took the money and ran instead of telling Smith, “look, get over yourself.” Shows canny sense, that.
People hate Mark Hamill for the same reasons they hate Wil Wheaton. He played a badly written character in a well loved geek classic. Therefore (in these people’s minds) he is a bad person who deserves all the vitriol for everything that has ever gone wrong in the world.
