Mark Hamill is a legend of the large and small screens alike, with performances in both live-action and animation that have won him fans everywhere. In fact, there was one character in his long career that was originally intended to be killed off. Hamill recently made his debut in the second season of a TV show that featured him playing yet another bad guy, although this one isn't nearly as brutally bonkers as his version of the Joker. No, his character on Netflix's Trollhunters is the troll baddie by the name of Dictatious. Trollhunters executive producer Marc Guggenheim told CinemaBlend about the original plan for the character:
I think when you hear a character, in many ways there's this arc, this process where you write a character. I don't typically write with actors in mind and then you hear the character voiced by the actor and instead of hearing the voice you heard in your head when you were writing the character, you start to hear their voice. That affects things. In the case of Mark's character, the original plan was to kill off his character but Mark was so great from the very first recording he did, we were like 'Oh, gotta change that plan!' I can't think of a more example than changing a character from dead to alive.
Trollhunters upped the ante on villains in Season 2 by bringing Gunmar and his followers out of the Darklands and into Jim's world, and Dictatious was a deeply personal villain for the Trollhunters. He's Blinky's brother, who Blinky (voiced by Kelsey Grammer) had thought died a long time ago. Poor Blinky had no idea that Dictatious had actually chosen to side with the evil Gunmar rather than stick with the good trolls of Trollmarket. The two brothers crossed paths for the first time in many years in Season 2. Although Dictatious gave Blinky a pretty rough treatment at first, Blinky ultimately came out on top by blinding his brother with a flare.
Blindness wasn't enough to put Dictatious on the sidelines, however, and he found new ways to scheme against Blinky and his pals. All things considered, Dictatious had a significant role in Season 2 of Trollhunters, and it's difficult to imagine how different the season would have been if Mark Hamill hadn't been so fantastic that Marc Guggenheim and Co. decided not to kill the character. Oddly enough, Dictatious also delivered a lot of laughs in Season 2, villainy aside. Trollhunters definitely had fun with the concept of a blind troll emerging from the Darklands many, many years after being trapped there. He was out of place in every way, but still delightfully evil.
All of this said, Mark Hamill is obviously best known nowadays for his work as Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars saga, and he recently returned to the role in a big way with The Last Jedi. Marc Guggenheim went on in our chat to say this about Hamill as a voice actor rather than a Jedi knight:
He's such a joy. I think because Luke Skywalker looms so large in everyone's minds, some people don't know that Mark is an accomplished voice actor for many many years. I also think it's very easy to forget that Mark's an incredibly talented actor and both of those things are on display in Trollhunters. Having him on the show is a real privilege.
Interestingly, there's one specific way that Trollhunters Season 2 was inspired by The Empire Strikes Back, and it's one that not everybody might have guessed. There's still one season of Trollhunters left before the adventures come to an end, so hopefully we'll get more of Mark Hamill as the dastardly Dictatious. If you're still not entirely sold on Trollhunters, swing by our rundown of big reasons why viewers are bound to love it.
You can catch both seasons of Trollhunters streaming on Netflix now. Our 2018 Netflix premiere guide can reveal your streaming options in the new year. If you haven't set your TV schedule for 2018 just yet, take a gander at our midseason TV premiere guide for when everything will hit the airwaves.
