A new video of Mark Hamill has surfaced – or rather, an old video. So old, in fact, that it predates the release of the first Star Wars movie.
Hamill and Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz visited WorldCon's MidAmeriCon in 1976 to talk about their bizarre and ambitious upcoming picture. They're welcomed to the stage with polite applause which feels far, far away from the echoing screams of Comic-Con Hall H.
In a Q&A during which Kurtz says he hopes Star Wars won't be over two hours, where someone asks about "light swords," and where Hamill pokes fun at his own line "Gee, it's lucky we had these compartments" and refers to Chewbacca as a "big ape man" ("More like a dog, or a big furry bear with a dog's nose. Very huggable," adds Kurtz), what's truly remarkable is looking back into a room where no one had any concept of how Star Wars would eventually change the world.
"Any time I had a question for George about 'Well, how does that work?' he would say 'Well this has no relation to time or space as we know it so shut up and let's shoot it,'" Hamill says, earning the first of many laughs from the crowd.
The audience repeatedly describes the film as science fiction – Kurtz clarifies that it's an action-adventure set in space, and not particularly scientific – and they seem genuinely concerned as to how Star Wars will distinguish itself from the genre.
"George had really told me and Gary had really told me it's just not that kind of movie," Hamill says. "It's a fairy tale and it's sweet and it's a swashbuckler. Cliché, maybe that's the adjective to use, but that sort of sums it up."
"It's not camp, it's not tongue in cheek, but funny things do happen," he adds. "Robots have most of the funny lines."
Hamill also jokes about the film's then-exorbitant $7 million budget that everyone should go see it twice for them to break even.
Spoiler alert: They broke even.
Topics Star Wars
