Add Mark Hamill to the bashers list?

Saturday November 27, 2004
Mark Hamill Slams Prequel Trilogy

Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars movies, says he doesn't like the new Star Wars movies. "To me, they are just too serious. So orderly and almost religious. Like The Ten Commandments," he told TV Movie magazine.
Hamill says the new movies don't have the same fun as the originals. "Having robots fight about who is responsible for a mess they are in sometimes felt like doing Stan and Ollie," he said.

Hamill believes his Star Wars character will always be associated with him. "Luke Skywalker will always and forever be a part of me," he said. "I bet that in the eulogy at my funeral, the first thing they'll mention will be Star Wars."



http://galactic-voyage.com/Galactic%20News.php

I'm not sure what to think. I know there have been a few false rumors about Mark Hamill in the past so I'm not sure if I should believe this, but it does sound more logical than previous rumors, and this is from a magazine. Thought I would post it anyway. For now, we should probably take this as a grain of salt, but who knows?

 

Uh-oh....look out...the world is ending....someone else says they don't like the PT....oh goodness...what will you do?

 

what will you do?

Discuss it without ignorant sarcasm of course. Especially when there are some people who find a Star Wars actor speaking negatively about a Star Wars film interesting.

If you're not one of them then perhaps you shouldn't bother posting about it. Unless you're just here to get a rise out of people.

 

Guiness and Ford disliked Star Wars from the start - it's no big deal if an actor doesn't find the films as completely satisfying as the fans do.

 

What you said about Alec Guiness isn't true. He actually only began disliking Star Wars in later years when thats all he bacame known for even though he had many other great films, so he didn't 'dislike it from the begining'. He was actually upset when he learned George Lucas wanted to kill him off in ANH. I've never heard of Ford not liking Star War either. He always said he thought it was a great story. He got tired of doing Star Wars(wanted Han to be killed off in ROTJ), but I don't think he really disliked it, especially from the begining. I think he just wanted to do other things.

 

someone else

Some one else?!
This is Luke freakin Skywalker saying he doesnt like the PT. Now him not liking the PT is fine with me and wont affect how I look at them BUT you cant tell me this isnt weird.
Not exactly a good way to promote the guy who directed his ONLY success.

 

From what I've heard Sir Alec always liked making the movies, but once the persona of Obi-Wan began to overwhelm his life he started to get upset about it...


I remember reading something about how David Prowse hated working on ROTJ...I dont remember why, but he felt like an outcast on the set

 

Sir Alec loved the good vs evil stigma and the fact that he could play 'the wise wizard'...

...he also thought the script was silly mumbo jumbo and felt degraded by some of the lines given to him

lol at "slams" in that article though, it wasn't anywhere near that serious

 

I think Prowse couldn't keep his mouth shut, so he was kept very much in the dark the whole time for RotJ.

 

Hmmm...this smells of tabloid tweaking. I have personally heard Mark commenting [this is a paraphrase from memory, of course] that he does feel the prequels are drier than the OT, and his era of the films were more humorous because they didn't take themselves seriously. But the tone of this article makes it seem significantly harsher and more arrogant than he would actually put it, for the sake of sensationalism. Mark has equally and repeatedly praised the prequels for their display of George Lucas's hardwon ability to tell exactly the story he envisioned, and for their sheer spectacle.

 

*pokes head in* And, um, it should be plainly pointed out that nowhere in there is he saying "I hate them" or "I think they suck"....you will notice that, as usual, it is the interviewer or the article itself giving that deliberate, willful, and very malicious spin to his words - which simply were *not* said. Indeed, to title the article as claiming that he "slams" the prequels - yet nowhere in the actual article is he quoted *saying* that directly - well, now, I think that in itself says a great deal for the clearly biased and supremely negative slant that the interviewer, the writer of the article, is giving the matter here. Be careful indeed, then, of the tabloid spin....because if you really read it at length, what is actually said - what *he* says - then it becomes quite readily apparent that nasty tabloid spin is *all* this is. And it is solely the fault of the framing article itself....

We have, after all, seen this happen before - people attempting to claim that Natalie or Ewan or whoever else has bashed the prequels or said how much they disdain them - when, of course, nothing could ever be farther from the truth. Time and time again, their words are deliberately and erroneously twisted right around, the intent of the conversation completely warped, and in general it ends up making them out to be saying something that they most assuredly were *not*. And if, as is the case here, Mark too has said on more than one occasion just how much he respects and admires the prequels, and GL's vision for them, and achievement with them - well, considering *that*....it seems pretty apparent indeed just who we should be believing, and what. And some wilfully, negatively slanted, outright biased article is certainly *not* it....

Be mindful still of the tabloid spin....eyes and ears open, always....caution and common sense, always....


Dawn.

 

Meh, Hammill's opinion is irrelivant. In a couple of years he will be digitally replaced in the OT with Hayden.

But seriously, I'm of the mind that this thread can only go downhill and result in locking. My prediction is it will go to heck in the next three to five posts. But now I'm too curious to see if I'm right that I find I just can't lock it yet.

 

There's a difference between "bashing" and respectfully disliking something. Since I don't hear about Mark going out of his way to say how whiny Anakin is or how he'd like to cause Jar Jar a long, painful death...I don't categorize this particular article as bashing. He brings up valid points and supports them in a fairly objective way; and in a civil way.

 

Good for Mark Hamill.

 

Apparently, a young child, who was a huge "Star Wars" fan, once wrote to Sir Alec Guiness asking for his autograph. Guiness agreed on the condition that the child would never again watch "Star Wars" (a bit of a joke, I know, but quite amusing). I have a private theory that Harrison Ford does not like, nor has ever liked any of the "Star Wars" films; I believe he respects them (the OT, at least), and is probably extremely grateful to Lucas for casting him in the films, as they represented the beginning of his ascent amongst the Hollywood elite. As for Hamill, well, good for him. He doesn't like the films, that's his business. His reasons for disliking them seem to be rather banal, however; I would appreciate more insight, rather than the usual sorts of unsophisticated remarks directed at the prequels. Hamill's comments will not effect my opinion of the films, and I will continue to be grateful for his contributions to the "Star Wars" saga, as he represents an invaluable piece of its success and appeal. End of story.

 

Defending Alec Guinness here:
The young child was not a young child. He was a teenager.
He walked up to Guinness in the street and called him Obi-Wan and said he'd do anything for him.
He said he'd seen SW over 100 times.

THAT, FOLKS, IS SCARY, and while Guinness may have acted a little tactlessly, he wasn't a mean old man making a little kid cry.



With that said, so what if this actor or that actor doesn't like one trilogy or the other. Guinness may not have been a huge fan of the OT, but that doesn't mean we can't like it. If Mark Hamill prefers the OT to the PT, that's his opinion.



Rick McCallum loves you!

 

Okay, you may be more precise in your recount of that anecdote, and I apologize for any inaccuracies I may have presented in my previous post; in my defense I suggest that I chose not to confirm the more specific details of that story, and recalled the story in "stream of consciousness" - off the top of my head, while I was typing. Considering the amount of money that Guiness made off the "Star Wars" films, through a back-end deal, I doubt that he had much in the way of regretful feelings concerning his participation in the movies. As I mentioned, Hamill can bash all he likes - it's his business; and as such, I will not overlook his many contributions to the saga.

 

You have to remember Guinness was a theater actor and a very serious actor at that. He starred in monumental epics such as Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Fall of the Roman Empire. The man even played Hitler. He was a Movie Star, not just an actor but a Movie Star. That meant something back in the day. For him to play a role in a movie like Star Wars, which was considered a "B" movie at the time and was not even called Science Fiction, but a Space Opera was something that would be beneath such the calibar of Sir Alec Guinness. But he did play it and did enjoy it. Only later, being recognized as Obi Wan instead of being known for his work as "Prince Feisal," his Academy Award performance as "Colonel Nicholson," "Marcus Aurelius," or even "Hitler" may have been insulting to him.

As for Hamill, well what else do you think he is going to say? He is Luke Skywalker, the one who started it all. He was in the first movie that launched so much more than just Star Wars. It launched special effects in to a whole new atmosphere. No more were the Saturday mornig sci fi where you could see the strings as the space ships flew passed. Of course he will say the OT is the best. But, as someone said earlier, you don't here him complaining about a whinny Anakin, or anything else. The PT does over a different feel to it. It must have been difficult for GL with all this new technology to have to make the PT look older than the OT. It must have been frustrating. But, this is the new era of Star Wars.

Sure he will forever be known as Luke Skywalker, but I don't think he complains too much about that. Even if he did, I wouldn't blame him for griping. The Star Wars referrences must get old after time. But as far as his career goes, take a look at how much he has done. He has done a huge amount of voices. He's even done Broadway. He is definitely not hurting.

 

Very well put, Lord_Darth_Vader.

 

That article is SO bs.

 

So, do we take the word from the man himself repeatedly saying he enjoys the prequels, or one short report in some irelivant magazine...

 

*pokes head in* And, um, it should be plainly pointed out that nowhere in there is he saying "I hate them" or "I think they suck"....you will notice that, as usual, it is the interviewer or the article itself giving that deliberate, willful, and very malicious spin to his words - which simply were *not* said.

Qui-Dawn has a point. And it's entirely possible that this was completely fabricated. You'll notice that there was no link to the putative interview in the article; I Googled the magazine name and couldn't find anything except for a German (I think) publication that didn't have any interview with Hamill.

It wouldn't be the first time a false anti-prequel quote was attributed to Hamill, nor the first time some article had a screaming headline that a SW actor (OT or PT) "trashed" the prequels when they did no such thing.

 

All these arguments have been made over and over on these and other threads on these boards.

Why must we discuss them AGAIN???

Alec, Ewan, Harrison - Mark - dudes, they all are happy for the exposure and not the baggage with it - plain and simple.