I knew when I asked "Remember that other movie Mark Hamill was in?" that I was exaggerating a bit. But I actually didn't know until just a few weeks ago that Mark had been in When Time Expires. Or, you know, that there was a movie called When Time Expires.
It's obvious that the powers behind this movie were hoping to capitalize on names-gone-by; Richard Grieco of 21 Jump Street plays the lead and Cynthia Geary from Northern Exposure his love interest.
Hamill's acting was, in my view, neither good nor bad. His part was relatively small, and he didn't make a significant impression one way or the other. He looked pretty average, too. It wasn't anything dramatic: he wasn't aging badly and there didn't appear to be residual effects from the accident. He just looked like your average guy, which would have been fine if you didn't know who he was...but a lot of the Luke Skywalker shine was gone, and with that earlier image in mind, he was a bit disappointing.
In fairness, Hamill played alongside Richard Grieco in this movie; the two were presented as peers, but there's actually a 14 year age difference between the actors and Grieco wasn't far removed from his Jump Street glory days.
I came away thinking that Hamill wasn't outstandingly good or bad--that he was an average actor who'd grown into an average-looking guy. And that made me wonder whether it wasn't Star Wars itself that derailed his acting career. Because plenty of average-looking people with ordinary acting skills make a living in those field...but we don't expect those people to be Luke Skywalker.