Mark Hamill Is Lending His Voice To Ukraine In Bizarre Usage
Mark Hamill is voicing the air raid announcements for Ukraine.
Mark Hamill, who is most famous for playing Luke Skywalker in Star Wars but is also a very talented voice actor (and whose animated Joker in Batman: The Animated Series is probably one of the best Joker portrayals ever), is now lending his vocal talents to Ukraine to assist in the war efforts. According to WCVB, Hamill has teamed up with Ajax Systems, the latter of which developed an app to inform Ukrainian citizens of incoming airstrikes using Hamill’s voice for the announcements.
Even nearly six years after his character’s on-screen death in The Last Jedi, Mark Hamill is still transporting people to a galaxy far, far away. As a way of supporting the war effort, Hamill has lent his Skywalker Jedi voice to the people of Ukraine by recording announcements of incoming air strikes, warning citizens to find shelter.
“Attention. Air raid alert,” Mark Hamill says in his famous baritone voice, in a calm but serious manner. “Proceed to the nearest shelter.”
The announcements are part of a downloadable app called Air Alert, developed to warn Ukrainian citizens of when the next Russian aerial strike will occur. While there are air raid sirens set to howl upon an upcoming strike, the Mark Hamill voiced app is another way the people of Ukraine can keep tabs on what is going on.
In addition to instructing people to find shelter, Mark Hamill, as Luke Skywalker in the app, also offers the sound advice, “Don’t be careless. Your overconfidence is your weakness.” When the danger is over, Hamill alerts Ukraine citizens, “The air alert is over. May the Force be with you.”
While the intrusion of the epic space fantasy franchise spliced into the very real and grim circumstances of the Russain-Ukraine war may seem surreal, many Ukrainians are grateful to Mark Hamill for lending his voice to the cause, saying that hearing the Jedi gives them hope and enforces the Ukranian mentality of finding humor even in the worst of times. Valentine Hrytsenko, the chief marketing officer at Ajax Systems, said that having Hamill speak the announcements makes the situation seem less terrifying without removing the direness of the circumstances.
In the first year of the war, air-raid alarms sounded more than 19,000 times across Ukraine. It’s an exhausting and frightening situation, but Mark Hamill’s voice has seemed to help 14 million people (the number of downloads the app has had so far) make the most out of their crappy deal of cards. Olena Yeremina, a 38-year-old business manager in the Ukraine capital, Kyiv, said that while the “May the Force be with you” sign-off made her laugh at first; it now gives her strength to carry on.
“I wouldn’t say that I feel like a Ukrainian Jedi, but sometimes this phrase reminds me to straighten my shoulders and keep working.”
Olena Yeremina
In addition to lending his voice to Ukraine, Mark Hamill says that the Ukrainian people’s tenacity inspires him, and he has become an ambassador for official fundraising for the Ukrainian government. The actor has autographed a series of Star Wars posters that are being raffled off, and all profits are to go to the continuing war effort.
