Mark Hamill is no stranger to talking Star Wars on social media, and he’s also no stranger to publicly discussing his thoughts on politics or the current state of the world. Yesterday, he brought those topics together after the major media outlets declared Joe Biden the President-Elect, and to say his picture was a huge hit, at least with those who share his political affiliations, would be selling it short.
The picture tweet, which tied the most recent United States Presidents to the classic Star Wars movie trilogy, was liked more than 450,000 times and was retweeted more than 100,000 times. It also inspired plenty of Photoshops dropping Joe Biden into classic shots from A Galaxy Far, Far Away. You can check out Hamill’s very political and very on brand tweet below…
As a general rule, actors are not typically a shy group about sharing their political affiliations or feelings on the state of the world, but thanks to social media, the age of increased polarization we’re currently living in and the very strong feelings many hold about President Trump, those opinions have been even more prevalent over the past few weeks. It has been, however, the tweets referencing people’s own careers that have proved especially popular. For example, former Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus tweeted about Madam Vice President no longer just being a fictional character, and it was liked more than 500,000 times.
The most popular responses to Mark Hamill’s tweet were, of course, also Star Wars references too. Many dropped in Gifs of the Death Star blowing up. Others dropped in videos of celebrations from the Star Wars set. I think my personal favorites were people bringing back this incredible Photoshop made by Jim Lawson of Joe Biden in full costume getting ready to go fight the Empire. It’s just so well done…
Mark Hamill has over four million followers on Twitter. Given the effort he puts into it and how good he is at finding random things Star Wars fans will love, like this typo as an example, as well as providing behind the scenes facts, it’s likely his follower count will only continue to grow moving forward, even though he's seemingly done with the franchise in an official capacity. Expect his account to mostly go back to more on brand things for awhile, but don’t ever expect it to be completely Star Wars focused. He’s always going to find time to drop in his thoughts on the state of the world and other shows he likes and he’s always going to find time to support his co-stars and pay tribute to others in the entertainment industry, which he did recently with the passing of Sean Connery.
