Mark Hamill kicks some ass on The Flash!!!

It was a lazy Tuesday night as I quickly turned past a rerun of "Modern family" with a look of disgust on my face and little did I know that TV history would be made tonight. I have seen a few episodes of "The Flash" and found it mediocre at best. But tonight Mark Hamill would reprise his role as The Trickster and let me tell you he indeed kicked ass! Not only that, he showed those half ass actors on the show how it was done.

If there is one thing Hamill knows it is how to play a comic book character. His voice over work that he has done for years while at times being the butt of the joke for it by the likes of Howard Stern, but whatever Hamill kicked ass.

It was a moment like in Star Trek Next Generation when Scotty from the old series showed up and handed them their ass. It was one of the best episodes of the series because you had an old school guy on the show that knew how to play it.

I hate to be so critical of today's actors but they just can't act. The real problem is they have no personality. They were brought up in school on political correctness and had it drummed into their heads not to offend people and I believe this has limited their range of expression. However, in their minds they are playing the role serious and to do otherwise would make it "campy" like the Batman of the 60's...they are serious actors and will not be cast as a camp actor. But what they don't realize is how stupid they look in a silly superhero costume acting so serious. Hamill on the other hand knows how this should be done. he owned the role of the Trickster and made it impossible for anyone to take his place. While the role of The Flash could easily be the new guy that played Spiderman or any other cookie cutter Abercrombie and Fitch model that has no expression and looks good. The idea behind this type of "actor" is that they feel the audience is either a teenage girl doing her nails on talking on the Iphone at the same time or a basement dweller just waiting for special effects. The show has its audience covered but in doing so they forgot about acting.

It was funny to watch the cast of The Flash try to bring their "A" game and compete with Hamill but it just couldn't be done. Again it was like a Star Trek Next Gen movie when Shatner walks on, he steals the show! It was truly a glorious moment in television and a precurser to the new Star Wars movie which I predict will be so huge, nothing will stop it. Black Barney and Barnes will try to say its not that good but will rationalize seeing it again just to go "watch the audience" or some garbage like that!

The fact is Hamill is back and he will kick your ass again soon, in Star Wars and I am going to love every minute of it!

Good post.

I watched a trailer to Hamill's appearance on the Flash and I thought it actually looked pretty good.

I'm on the same side as you regarding the new Star Wars movie. I'm really excited about it. I think you're mistakenly putting me in with Barnes on that one. I don't dislike popular things just cuz they're popular.

I disagree with you regarding Scotty and Shatner coming on Next Gen episodes and movies. I always felt it was too forced and unnatural. I didn't find it special. But conversly when Bones and Spock were on Next Gen, I thought those were awesome.

Sorry about putting you in the Barnes camp, I was probably thinking Pete! LOL

It is a shame you didn't appreciate the Scotty appearance on Next Gen. Scotty's line,

"You soured the milk!" is a true classic!

The only good part of that episode is when he's drinking whisky on the holodeck bridge of the NCC-1701. That was classy, I loved it. I like that Picard walks on, looks around and immediately says, "Constitution-class." That's just so him.

I think the main reason why the Scotty episode is bad is cuz it's a Geordie episode. All Geordie episodes are absolutely terrible. Same with Wesley episodes, Crusher episodes and I want to say Troi episodes but Disaster was pretty good.

I think you're being too hard on the actors. I agree that they are rather interchangeable, but part of that stems from trying to achieve "realism." It's easy for Hamill to be over the top because he's a crazy one-shot villain. If you had to watch that kind of manic performance every week, you'd start to hate it pretty quickly.

I love watching The Flash, but I think the writing is the weak spot more often than the acting.

The only good part of that episode is when he's drinking whisky on the holodeck bridge of the NCC-1701. That was classy, I loved it. I like that Picard walks on, looks around and immediately says, "Constitution-class." That's just so him.

I think the main reason why the Scotty episode is bad is cuz it's a Geordie episode. All Geordie episodes are absolutely terrible. Same with Wesley episodes, Crusher episodes and I want to say Troi episodes but Disaster was pretty good.

Yes, the drinking whisky scene was great ! I will agree all Wesley episodes are garbage. Wesley is interesting because of the Trekie backlash against him. Trekie's had meetings to discuss what could be done to get him off the show, he was absolutely horrible. Some blamed the writing but I must disagree, it was all Wheaton and it was all bad!!! I would have loved to have seen Wesley meet the same fate as Adric in the Davidson era Doctor Who where he was blown up aboard the Space Ship. Adric was like Wesley a horrible character that bordered on ruining the show, one of the great Doctor Who moments was to see Adric blown up!

I think you're being too hard on the actors. I agree that they are rather interchangeable, but part of that stems from trying to achieve "realism." It's easy for Hamill to be over the top because he's a crazy one-shot villain. If you had to watch that kind of manic performance every week, you'd start to hate it pretty quickly.

I love watching The Flash, but I think the writing is the weak spot more often than the acting.

Yes, I hate to be critical and will always give something new a chance but I'm not the only one saying this about them being interchangeable.
I think they are trying to please everyone and this simply can't be done which in the end makes their performance forgetable

That episode where Wesley covers up the illegal flight maneuver at the Academy is good, especially because it leads to the later episode with that female cadet.

that later episode, "Lower Decks" is one of my favourites.

The illegal flight manuever episode is hot and cold. You've got a great Picard scene of him dressing down Wesley (who doesn't want to see that all the time?), but then you have a Wesley speech later on which is just so awful, especially when he looks at the dead cadet's dead all doey-eyed. UGH

also, they really overplay that stupid Boothby character.

The Lone Voice wrote: Sorry about putting you in the Barnes camp, I was probably thinking Pete! LOL

LMAO, yeah, because popularity is the sole criterion when I select things I like. Barnes is actually Patient Zero in the "2000's Hipster Epidemic", whereas I'm the Unofficial King of the Dirtbags. I can see how a mistake might be made.



I do agree with you - most of the "actors" today can't act. I call it the "Cage Effect". Most actors can't seem to get outside of their own personalities, and so you get guys like Nic Cage who can only do a cheap imitation of Elvis as their on-screen persona. They look at him, loaded and the nephew of an incredible director, and think, "Yeah, I want to play one character across 50 movies and get rich too!".

NOPE.

Hamill was a great choice because he wasn't anyone in "the business" and in a way kind of remains so. Sure, he does voice overs and cameos, but he still isn't part of "the business" the way a guy like Mel Gibson, who started out as some anonymous anti-semitic cunt, and then built an empire from his early lucky breaks. Still an anti-semitic cunt, but a successful "showbiz staple".

I still don't get the fascination with people who essentially are playing dress up for a living; this cult of personality that erupts around people when IT'S NOT EVEN THEIR REAL PERSONALITY. It's kind of funny to watch, really. People see "House MD" and think that somehow Hugh Laurie IS that guy in real life, and chase him around because "he's a brilliant diagnostician" not remembering that he's actually "a guy pretending to be a brilliant diagnostician".

YMMV

Your "Cage Effect" is interesting. One only has to watch the movie "Firebirds" to see the "Cage Effect" in full bloom. However, sympathy goes out to Cage for he is a fellow geek and while the rumor that Lisa Marie made him sell his comic book collection has been said to be false, I am not so sure. I heard that she had laughed at Cage for collecting comic books. Here's the Official Scoop:

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Lisa Marie Presley made Nicolas Cage sell his comic collection.

STATUS: False

When Nicolas Cage sold off his vast comic book collection awhile back, soon before his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, it sparked off rampant speculation that Presley was the reason behind the sale.

However, John Petty, who was heavily involved in the sale, has this to say about the situation…

When Nic auctioned his comic collection through Heritage in October, 2002, there were a lot of stories going around as to why he was doing so. I was in the thick of this whole thing, as I was the Director of Heritage Comics at the time, and I also was liaison with the media for this event.

The official story that we got from Nic’s people (we never did talk to Nic himself, just his business manager and his publicist) was that Nic was simply “moving into other areas of interest.” There were lots of other stories floating around at the time (including that Lisa Marie “made” him sell his collection), but those are all apocryphal at best. To the best of my knowledge, Lisa Marie had nothing to do with Nic’s decision to sell.

Sounds good enough to me!

Doesn't sound good enough to me. if you read the above they didn't actually talk to Cage only his people who were no doubt protecting his image. Where there is smoke, there is fire.My guess is that Cage was laughed at by Lisa Marie for collecting comics, he went into CAGE RAGE and now is no doubt rebuying his collection in secret. 10 to 1 he is reading Hulk #1 as we speak! LMAO!

Getting back to the Flash episode I think everyone killed it. Grant plays a very sympathetic hero and his relationship with everyone is done fantastically especially with Joe, his "step" father, which seems sincere and loving.

I think the writing is pretty good and overall the series is wonderful.

And this episode has some doozy revelations.

And the scenes from the next episode (unfortunately on April 14) looks great with team ups with Arrow and Atom, with Grodd as a baddie and a slew of meta humans.

Hamill was fun. Would have been cool to have Flash grab Hamill as bomb was activated and run with him telling him that "you better provide me the motivation to keep running or you'll blow up with me."

Anyway, great show. The only thing missing, if you were into that, is from modern animated portrayals of the Flash as a wise-cracking, womanizer.

Anyway, great show. The only thing missing, if you were into that, is from modern animated portrayals of the Flash as a wise-cracking, womanizer.

Great point! Modern TV seems to be neutering men. The Shatner womanizing character went out with Picard!

I was always a Wally West Flash fan. I remember having the debut of the Speed Demon...some guy who ended up taking a serum (shocker! I know!) to gain super speed. Remember being impacted on that, and that single issue actually got me into competitive sprinting. It was my sole purpose - to be the fastest sprinter. I even liked that short-run show a decade or so (early 90's?) ago starring the least able actor ever, John Wesley Shipp, who I rate up there with other three-named individuals like Charles Joseph Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald in their ability to unjustly murder things, albeit in this case, just a TV show.

I'll have to check this new Flash out. I'm obviously a huge fan of the character (really, only Wally West's version, sort of like how every Green Lantern aside from Hal Jordan can fuck right off), so this has to be worth seeing with all of you going on about it.

I'm coming to this conversation wayyyyy late, and in fact I haven't even seen the new Flash TV show. I just wanted to say that it doesn't surprise me that Hamill killed it as the Trickster. That guy can really play a comic villain.

You can't spell Mark Hamill without ARKHAM after all...