Mark Hamill Reveals Initial Star Wars Trailer Reaction
Hindsight is 20/20 they say, and that’s very true. If we knew now what we thought we knew then, oh how different our lives would be. But that also goes for things of a more subtle nature. Like knowing what movies would be hits and what ones wouldn’t.
At Star Wars Celebration, actor Mark Hamill revealed that fans were exactly excited about Star Wars when the first trailer came out. In fact, he recalled one time that he and the late Carrie Fisher went and saw the trailer presented for some moviegoers.
“We went in and we watched it,” he told the audience. “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. It made a real impression on me because we hadn’t seen any of the footage. 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,’” he recalled. “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.’”
While it’s obvious that the movie was a hit in every way, it is fascinating to hear that because of a few simple omissions (the music, SFX, etc.) Star Wars was viewed as a “bad movie” by some. Who knew