Mark Hamill's Forgotten '80s Adventure Movie Was Directed By An Influential Sci-fi Creative

Entertainment Film Distributors

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Mark Hamill is, and forever will be, a sci-fi legend. That's primarily because he played Luke Skywalker in the "Star Wars" saga, but he's done plenty of other work in the genre over the years. That includes a little-discussed '80s science fiction movie titled "Slipstream," directed by an influential creator in the genre.

"Slipstream" was directed by Steven Lisberger, the creator of "Tron." Though it wasn't a hit in its day, "Tron" was hugely influential to an entire generation of filmmakers. In 1989, he returned to the genre for a movie with an interesting premise. Unfortunately, it was another disappointment, both critically and commercially, despite having a stellar cast. Hamill was only part of the equation.

The movie takes place in an imagined near future where Earth has been devastated by pollution and giant winds dominate the planet. A bounty hunter named Matt (Bill Paxton) kidnaps a murderer (Bob Peck) from lawman Will Tasker (Mark Hamill) in an attempt to get the bounty for himself. Ben Kingsley, who won an Oscar for "Gandhi" in 1983, and F. Murray Abraham ("Amadeus") also starred.

Sad to say, "Slipstream" was kind of a here today, gone tomorrow affair. It had a very brief run in theaters in the U.K. before going direct-to-video in the U.S. Critics also weren't terribly kind to it, with the movie holding a 43% on Rotten Tomatoes, to go with an even worse 24% audience rating. A good premise only gets you so far, and this one couldn't do much, despite having a lot of great pieces on the board.

Entertainment Film Distributors

This is an interesting movie that came at an opportune time for the people at its center. For Mark Hamill, "Return of the Jedi" gave "Star Wars" an ending (at least for a while) several years earlier. He was no longer Luke Skywalker and had to define himself elsewhere as an actor. Hard though it may be to believe in the here and now, but Hamill, for a time, wasn't getting great job offers. He became a real working man's actor, for better or worse.

Hamill would later find a fruitful career as a voice actor, voicing the Joker in "Batman: The Animated Series," among many other noteworthy projects. For Steven Lisberger, this still represents the last time that he directed a motion picture of any kind. Even though 1982's "Tron" helped define sci-fi history, it was far from a hit. It was a cult favorite. Having another movie flop didn't do his career any favors.

Years later, the director of "Tron" tried to make a comeback with the movie "Soul Code," but Lisberger's planned comeback never got off the ground. He would get his flowers, though, in some way, when Disney, many years later, made "Tron: Legacy." Rather than reboot the franchise, the 2010 movie was a legacy sequel that continued what he had started all those many years before.

More recently, the franchise continued with "Tron: Ares" in 2025. But the "Tron" franchise is dead once again as "Ares" flopped at the box office. Still, at the very least, Lisberger's greatest creation lives on in some way. It's just a shame that he never managed to find firmer footing as a filmmaker.

You can grab "Slipstream" on DVD from Amazon.