I have to disagree with the sentiment that if Mark Hamill thinks there's something wrong with the character, then that means there is demonstrably something wrong with the character.
Mark Hamill is simply an actor who portrays the character based on how he's directed/told to portray him, and does a good job at it. Just because he portrays the character doesn't necessarily mean his views and his opinion on the character inherently mean it's the right or wrong thing.
Same principle as movie critics. Just because they're movie critics, doesn't mean that their opinion on a film is somehow more "right" than yours. You both watched the same film. They have an opinion on it, you have an opinion on it.
Hamill himself at the end of many of his interviews, said that he personally disagrees with the direction of the character, but that he hopes that there are people who do like it. I think he's in the camp where it's just simply a shock to see Luke go from RotJ (the last time we saw him on screen), to how he is in TFA and TLJ. Once the shock kind of wears off and what happened starts settling in, I think there are some people (perhaps even Hamill himself) who will come to terms with how Luke was portrayed and realize that how he ended up being later in life, isn't all that shocking after all.
If this is what you think, I’m going to have to guess that you’re not too familiar with the acting process or actually done much acting in life.
Believe me, at this level, it’s far more than being a pawn to be moved about and placed by a writer/director. It is an intensely collaborative effort by an ensemble of extraordinary talents.
All actors, but especially elite professional actors, are required to pump life into the characters they play. They do this by pumping their own life energies into their performances. It is an intensely personal and intimate endeavor.
Top actors envelop and INHABIT their characters. Emotion and motivation is interpreted from the page and processed through the actor’s performance to the point where he can anticipate and improvise within the character and come off to an audience as perfectly natural and IN PLACE with who that character is. The only way to do this is to understand who the character is. To BE the character during the entire film making process.
For a man like Mark Hamill, who has not only brought life to Luke, but who has built a career around being Luke for more than 40 years, I would argue the NO ONE knows Luke Skywalker better than Mark Hamill. Because he was the life in Luke Skywalker in a VERY real way. A way that can be lost on those who have never really immersed themselves in this art form.
Mark is uniquely positioned to be sensitive to, and to call out character directions/requirements that are abhorrent to the character he has worked much of his life to create.
But Mark is also a professional. His statement is in perfect keeping with his professionalism. He took the direction he was given (and did a GREAT job at it too! Easily the performance of his career…) , and then expressed his hope that audiences would enjoy the final product.
In my interpretation, it was this Luke mis-match in terms of the character we knew vs the character we ultimately got that brought the film down. Obviously others are free to enjoy the character study Rian Johnson brought to the screen and herald it as bringing fresh air to a stale Star Wars machine….but that machine is a cherry ’67 GTO Convertible. We love the machine.
I don’t enjoy the term Luke Derangement Syndrome because it implies that people who didn’t recognize the guy with the beard and the crap attitude up on the screen (you know, people like Mark-freaking-Hamill..!) have something wrong with them, or that they don’t have the refinement necessary to appreciate the delicate genius of Rian Johnson. No true. We just rejected his interpretation of Luke in favor of the creator of the character…
Luke must not have been taught by a Jedi then since Jedi don't give up, and that's precisely what Yoda did.
Not true. Yoda NEVER gave up. He saw the demise of the Jedi, knew that the Empire was a force with which he could not deal with only himself and Ben, so he preserved himself as best he could in wait for the New Hope…