Mark Hamill Praises Carrie Fisher's Original Star Wars Performance: 'She Made Us Look Like The Two Stooges'

Whether you decide to watch A new hope first or opt for the way Star Wars movies in chronological order, i.e. start with The Phantom Menaceyou’ll finally be able to enjoy Carrie Fisher’s performance as Princess Leia Organa. It didn’t take long for the young royal of Alderaan to show just how capable she is in the first installment of the original trilogy, when she took down a stormtrooper before being captured aboard the Tantive IV. And then, of course, who can forget the moment she took charge of her escape from the Death Star prison? It’s a move that Mark Hamill says made Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, played by Harrison Ford, look like “The Two Stooges.”

Hamill remembers shooting this scene in the very first Star Wars He began by saying that he thought it was “effortless feminism” for Leia Organa to be more than just a “shrinking violet,” which was also demonstrated early on by the fact that she wasn’t “intimidated” by Darth Vader “in the slightest.” The Luke Skywalker actor continued:

When we rescued her, she made Luke and Han look like idiots. “You call that a rescue? Hand me that gun.” She made us look like the Two Stooges. And I thought, “This is effortless feminism because it’s not an excuse, it just shows a woman who is as great as any man on screen.”

In case you needed a reminder, and assuming you’d rather not just watch A new hope With your Disney+ subscription before returning to this article, after sneaking aboard the first Death Star, Luke and Han disguised themselves as stormtroopers and pretended to transport Chewbacca as a prisoner to the same detention level where Leia was being held. While they managed to take out the guards in the area and free the princess from her cell, they quickly found themselves cornered by the arrival of reinforcements who were shooting at them. Rather than wait to be killed, Leia took Luke’s blaster, opened a nearby grate, and threw them all into one of the space station’s trash compactors.

Sure, the quartet quickly found themselves battling a strange creature that dragged Luke underwater and nearly crushed him to death, but Leia nonetheless got them out of a big jam moments after escaping from prison. And let’s not forget that not long before, she was subjected to an IT-0 interrogation droid, but managed to resist its efforts to force her to reveal the location of the Rebellion’s main base. So, taking all of that into account, Mark Hamill saying that Leia made Luke and Han look like two-thirds of the Three Stooges, one of the greatest comedy acts of the vaudeville era and the Golden Age of Hollywood, is not a stretch.

Leia continued to impress throughout The Empire Strikes Back And Return of the Jedias well as the Star Wars Sequel trilogy over the past decade. You can relive those moments by watching these space opera movies on Disney+. If you’d rather look ahead, our guide to the upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows are available for viewing.