Actor Mark Hamill appeared in a Star Wars-themed promo for former President Barack Obama’s presidential library in Chicago, Illinois, inspiring mockery and memes for its flat humor and failed attempt to gin up excitement for the ugly, controversial building.
“Happy Star Wars Day from the Obama Presidential Center,” Barack says to open up the video, published on May 4. Hamill, famous for his role as series protagonist Luke Skywalker, responds, “I’ve got a very good feeling about this” — an inside joke based on a recurring line from the space fantasy movies.
The groan-inducing Star Wars jokes continue with Obama describing a young person yearning for adventure and purpose. Hamill pretends to get too excited by the similarities to young Luke, suggesting that this person should “blow up a giant spacer laser,” as he did at the climax of series’ first film. The former president chides him, saying he was talking about today’s youth, and what they should do instead is buy tickets to his presidential center’s grand opening on Juneteenth (which Joe Biden made a federal holiday, not Obama).
“This isn’t a monument to my legacy,” Obama continues, uttering one of the most obvious tropes of AI-generated writing. “It’s a gateway to yours. The Obama Presidential Center is much more than a museum. It is an entire campus built to empower you.”
The video concludes with Obama forcing about being a “force [pause] for change,” with Hamill calling out his “dad jokes” in a low-effort Yoda impression.
On social media, the clip did not go over well. “This is an absolute disaster for them,” reads the top-rated reply. “Too bad you decided to ‘use the force’ to evict black families so you could build it in their neighborhood,” the second most-liked comment says. The most-liked quotes on the post are also trashing it:
“How cringe is this?”
“I watched this and now I have cancer.”
“This is what Barack Obama does best, make unwatchable videos with former celebrities and pat himself on the back for creating one of the ugliest buildings anyone’s ever seen.”
Several comments and memes mocked the fact that the building’s design looks like something straight out of the evil Empire’s arsenal.
“Emperor Palpatine announcing that his battle station has become fully operational,” one author wrote as a caption over the video.
Hamill has long been a suck-up to Democrat politicians, donating to Hillary Clinton‘s failed presidential campaign, promoting former First Lady Michelle Obama as a vice presidential candidate, lending his byline to a fundraising email for Adam Schiff, praising Joe Biden as “the best president we’ve ever had,” and even crashing a White House press briefing to gush about “Joe-bi-Wan Kenobi.”