Mark Hamill Says The First Star Wars Trailer Was Heckled Hard

40 years after its premiere, Star Wars has dominated pop culture and has cemented its legacy in […]

September 5, 2017, 6:08pm

40 years after its premiere, Star Wars has dominated pop culture and has cemented its legacy in the history of storytelling, inspiring audiences to avoid the “Dark Side” for decades. Even though the saga is widely lauded in 2017, when audiences first saw trailers for the unknown space opera, not everyone was looking forward to seeing it. During closing night festivities at Star Wars Celebration, Mark Hamill recalled an incident where he and Carrie Fisher watched the trailer with an audience, who were happy to voice their displeasure with it.

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Hamill recalled for the audience that, after hanging out at the studio, he met up with Carrie Fisher for lunch. During their encounter, the pair walked past a theater, which Fisher noted was playing the trailer for the film. Fisher encouraged him to ask the manager if they could go in to watch just the trailer.

The actor has revealed on multiple occasions how often Fisher goaded him into doing things he didn’t want to do, recalling, “I said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’” He continued, “She said, ‘Well, you’ve been on television for seven years. You’ve been on all these TV movies.”

Eventually, the two were allowed in and experienced a feeling they’d never forget.

“We went in and we watched it. It was so early they didn’t have John Williams’ score. They didn’t have very many special effects finished at all. A couple of shots of TIE Fighters, I think,” Hamill explained. “It made a real impression on me because we hadn’t seen any of the footage.”

However, the audience didn’t entirely share Hamill’s response.

“At the end of the trailer, it said, ‘A billion light years in the making. And it’s coming to your galaxy this summer.’ Big explosion. And somebody in the balcony yelled out, ‘Yeah, and it’s coming to the late show about two weeks after that,’” Hamill confessed. “Nobody enjoys a well-placed, snarky remark more than I do. So we both laughed, but after we laughed, we kind of went, ‘Uh oh.’”

Despite those initial reactions to the film, the negative response has been the minority, with the Star Wars franchise being one of the most well-received and financially profitable legacies in the history of entertainment.

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[H/T The Hollywood Reporter]