Aside from delivering one of his most riveting performances as a much older Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, actor Mark Hamill is also a voracious tweeter and politico. He loves to (lovingly) troll his adoring fans and ridicule those whose political beliefs do not entirely align with his, as recently occurred when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tried and failed to lecture Hamill on net neutrality. This time, the actor hasn’t actually done anything yet, but as soon as he catches wind of what NRA TV host Grant Stinchfield had to say about his gun control beliefs, Hamill will undoubtedly respond.
During a recent broadcast, Stinchfield — who once chastised the press for describing guns as “weapons” — turned his attention to comments Hamill made about gun control in an interview with Australia’s Herald Sun. While promoting The Last Jedi, the actor revealed his own backstory for Luke Skywalker was based on his thoughts about gun control. “America has a lot of crazy people and the gun laws are just totally wrong and disproportionate for what we need,” he said while explaining a tragic lightsaber accident he devised to help him with his performance. The line prompted Stinchfield to reinterpret the entire Star Wars saga:
“Once again we get a Hollywood millionaire, protected on set by armed body guards 24/7, and he thinks our gun laws are too strict. He’s also a hypocrite. Star Wars was and is a violent movie. All of them are. Shoot ’em up thrillers at their best. What if the Galactic Republic outlawed lightsabers and ray guns? No more armed spaceships. Darth Vader’s evil empire would have run ramshod over Skywalker. Han Solo would have died who knows how many movies ago. In fact, the lightsabers and laser guns are what gave the good guys in every Star Wars movie a fighting chance.”
Re-casting George Lucas’ ongoing battle between good and evil within the context of the NRA’s preferred “good guy with a gun” narrative is problematic for many reasons. Needless to say, Twitter was quick to ridicule Stinchfield for it, as well as for his calling them “ray guns” instead of “blasters.”
https://twitter.com/max_read/status/943507227918458881
1) They're called blasters
2) Lightsabers are akin to swords, they'd be regulated differently
3) Jedi can make lightning, they don't need weapons
4) Has this man seen a star war? https://t.co/Oi0BWjNkxA— BethElderkin@Mastodon.Social (@BethElderkin) December 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/943506468002783232
https://twitter.com/taylorjwofford/status/943510444848893953
what if the empire concentrated all its firepower into one giant gun – say, a death star – well, they'd have you beat for sure https://t.co/AOxZipudF5
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) December 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/lukeoneil47/status/943505322995539968
https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/943498981652533250
(Via Media Matters and Herald Sun)