Mark Hamill is one of the biggest supporters of Star Wars, and Star Wars fans, that's out there today. He seems to absolutely love the passion that people have for those movies. However, there is one place where he does take issue with the ardor of fandom. He's still upset with the vitriol that was thrown at the Star Wars prequels, particularly the anger that was hurled at the young Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
I couldn't believe some of the things they wrote about the prequels, you know. I mean really, beyond 'I didn't like it'. I'm still angry about the way they treated Jake Lloyd. He was only ten years old, that boy, and he did exactly what George wanted him to do. Believe me, I understand clunky dialog.
The fans general dislike of the Star Wars prequels has become a legend of its own over the last two decades. Whether it was the plot's focus on galactic politics instead of smugglers and Jedi, CGI characters with terrible dialogue and offensive accents, or meaningless statements about the coarseness of sand, there is a lot that people don't like about the prequels. But back when there was only one prequel movie to bash, the two parts that received the most negative response were clearly Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd the actor playing the child Anakin Skywalker.
Mark Hamill doesn't defend the "clunky dialogue." After all, it's not like the original trilogy is completely without its own terrible lines. But, as Hamill points out to Vulture, Jake Lloyd was a kid doing what his director told him to do. The man who played Luke Skywalker was at least a teenager when he took on the starring role in Star Wars and we have to assume he was criticized by some for his own performance, but being a bit older he was able to deal with it.
Mark Hamill also takes issue with the "you ruined my childhood" crowd of prequel haters. There's nothing wrong with not liking the movies, but the actor feels that we should all be able to just leave it at that.
In the end, Mark Hamill has a point. Movies aren't made by one person. There were numerous people who made numerous decisions that combined to create the Star Wars prequels. If you didn't like them, there's plenty of blame you can spread around evenly. And it's probably best to try to avoid blaming the 10-year-old. It's clear that Jake Lloyd had to deal with a lot of crap growing up that nobody else could begin to understand. While it's too late to prevent all that, it wouldn't be awful to stop making it worse.
Besides, if you didn't like the Star Wars prequels, you probably disliked all three and the 10-year-old didn't even influence the two he wasn't in, so clearly the issue was not him.
