Mark Hamill Guest Stars

One thing the publicity surrounding the new Star Wars movies seems to have done is revived Mark Hamill's acting career.  Ironically, Star Wars fame doesn't seem to have been a benefit to Hamill back in the days when Luke Skywalker was everywhere. However, since news outlets have been buzzing with speculation about the return of Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fischer for the 2015 release, the three have been the focus of renewed interest.

Whether Hamill is testing the waters with a more visible role or he's getting more offers since the spotlight has turned back toward the trio, his television appearances have stepped up quite a bit.  After a spot with Star Trek veteran George Takei on The Neighbors in March, we're now hearing that Hamill will guest star on the 2-part season finale of Criminal Minds.

Information about Hamill's role on the popular crime drama has been strictly limited, but we're hearing hints that he may not be the good guy.  Tune in on May 22 to learn more.

Mark Hamill on The Neighbors March 27

Ready for a preview of Mark Hamill as we all await news on whether or not Hamill will be reprising the role of Luke Skywalker in 2015? 

He'll be appearing on the season finale of The Neighbors, and he won't be alone.  TVGuide is reporting that Hamill will share his small screen appearance with George Takei.  Despite heavy overlap (and occasional rivalry) among the die-hard Star Wars and Star Trek fan bases, this filming was apparently the first time the two actors have come face to face.

Perhaps Hamill, who has stuck almost exclusively to voice acting for many years, wants to get his feet wet again before jumping into something as big as Star Wars 7.

The Star Wars Family Tree

I know, I know...I called this blog BEYOND Luke Skywalker for a reason.  And it's meant to be about the trajectory of Mark Hamill's career post-Star Wars and not about LUKE SKYWALKER.  But in the wake of the news about the new Star Wars movie, there's just been too much good Star Wars stuff to ignore.  I restrained myself from sharing the Star Wars/School House Rock mash-up with you the other day, but there's only so much I can ignore.

Thus, today I bring you "A Star Wars Family Tree that Shows it Was Really a Soap Opera": and what was up with the way everyone just glossed over that big messy kiss Leia had laid on Luke after they discovered that they were not only siblings but TWINS?

Mark Hamill's Star Wars Audition

One of the theories I promised to explore when I started this blog was that the reason Mark Hamill's career didn't take off like Harrison Ford's did post-Star Wars was simply that he wasn't a very good actor.  To be honest, I'm having a tough time assessing that. 

Corvette Summer, as I mentioned earlier, isn't exactly an optimal showcase for anyone's acting skills. And I'm sure many of my generation will understand that I simply can't evaluate Luke Skywalker objectively.  Even if I were able to shake off the associations from the 70s, I've simply seen the first block of Star Wars movies too often to see them with any kind of objectivity at this point.

Hamill does seem to have garnered respect as a voice actor, something I'll delve into further in another post.  And there's an element of irony in that, given that his Star Wars "big break" was almost certainly attributable (at least in part) to his boyish good looks.  That's always been my assumption, and it was reinforced for me when I watched this video of Hamill's Star Wars audition.



I'm very curious to hear others' reactions to this audition tape.  My own response was a resounding, "eh."  It wasn't bad, but literally nothing about it stood out to me.  Though the idea of anyone other than Mark Hamill portraying Luke Skywalker seems unthinkable today, I'd really love to get a look at some of the other audition tapes for that part.

Harrison Ford v. Han Solo

This is a little off-topic for this blog, but given that one of the mysteries surrounding Mark Hamill's lack of success post-Star Wars is the phenomenal trajectory of co-star Harrison Ford's acting career--and given that there's a lot of buzz at the moment surrounding the possibility that both Hamill and Ford will be reprising their Star Wars characters in 2015--I thought it was worth sharing.

Back in November, before things really started to heat up, The Huffington Post took a look at Ford's treatment of and response to Han Solo and the Star Wars franchise as it unfolded over the years...complete with video clips spanning more than thirty years. 

Here's the first, but if you're at all interested in Star Wars, it's well worth visiting  the original post and checking out the evolution.

Did Corvette Summmer Derail Mark Hamill's Acting Career?

I mentioned in my first post here that there are several possible explanations for the disparity between the post-Star Wars career paths of Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford.  Though I'm far from the point of drawing any conclusions, I've long suspected that Corvette Summer played a role in Hamill's disappearance from the on-screen world.



I saw Corvette Summer at the drive-in shortly after its release, and I liked it.  I'd just turned 12.  It was the second-billed movie of a double-feature, and my parents really wanted to leave ten or fifteen minutes into the movie.  That's saying something given that my dad is something of a collector of antique automobiles and my mom had recently traded in her 1968 Firebird convertible for a 1974 Camaro.

I ran across the movie on late night television several years ago and I was very surprised. I was kind of excited to see it, but once I didn't make it very far.  Whatever appeal Corvette Summer had once held for me was either a product of the story line being well suited to a 12-year-old or of Mark Hamill's presence at a time when I was firmly in the Luke Skywalker camp.

In fairness, the  movie didn't bomb--its box office was about $15 million at a time when the top grossing films weren't even approaching $100 million.  And it maintains a faithful following to this day: 50% of its Amazon ratings are 5 stars and it has a 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

It's worth noting, though, that virtually all of the strong positive reviews mention having first seen this movie in adolescence.  It's impossible for me to discern how I'd see this movie (or how any of those reviewers would) had we not been Star Wars-struck adolescents in the day.

And that, I think, was ultimately the problem with Corvette Summer.  Annie Potts was an unknown at the time. The film had two big draws: the car and Mark Hamill. But Hamill's fan base at that time was largely comprised of the very young--with two male leads in Star Wars, there were definite camps, and Hamill's camp seemed to skew toward those in my middle-school age bracket.

However, not every 12-year-old girl had parents as liberal as mine. The film was a shade on the risque side for middle-schoolers in the 70s--the female lead was an aspiring prostitute.  So, the movie wasn't necessarily available to the bulk of the audience it would naturally have garnered by putting Hamill in the lead.  And the grown-ups...well, I have only the reactions of my own parents to judge by, but I also noted that none of those nostalgic reviews I read started out, "I first saw this movie the summer I turned thirty..."

Though starring in a very different film that broke the Luke Skywalker association early on was a smart move for Hamill, this might not have been the film to make it work.

What Mark Hamill is Saying about His Return to Star Wars

Slashfilm has assembled a bunch of fresh, detailed quotes from Hamill himself that seem to indicate that we're all jumping the gun just a little bit. Though Hamill says that he expects to be in the film and seems to want to be, he says no contracts have been signed and he hasn't talked to writers--he apparently has no more idea than the rest of us about where he'd fit into the storyline. He did assure us that Lucas had indicated there would NOT be new actors playing Luke, Han or Leia--either they were in or the characters would be written out. But, like some of the assurances we talked about yesterday, that seems to have come from an era in which Lucas expected to have more influence over the direction of the films than we should expect him to now. The upshot of this new information seems to be...there is no new information. Continue holding your breath.