LATEST NEWS

Mark Hamill Confirms Early Talks to Return for 'Star Wars: Episode VII'

by Ben Pearson
February 20, 2013
Source: ET

If you're not prepared for literally years worth of back and forth, he-said she-said rumors, hints, denials, speculation, and confirmation regarding the new Star Wars film series, you're in for a rude awakening. Latino Review said on Friday that they had official word from their sources that Harrison Ford would be returning as Han Solo in Episode VII, and now ET has a new interview with Mark Hamill, who we all know as Luke Skywalker, and he confirms the likelihood of a return, but it's not a done deal yet. Hamill says, "I can tell you right away that we haven't signed any contracts." But we're not sure who "we" includes.

Here's what Mark Hamill told Entertainment Tonight in their interview, posted this morning:

"They're talking to us. George [Lucas] wanted to know whether we'd be interested. He did say that if we didn't want to do it, they wouldn't cast another actor in our parts – they would write us out. … I can tell you right away that we haven't signed any contracts. We're in the stage where they want us to go in and meet with Michael Arndt, who is the writer, and Kathleen Kennedy, who is going to run Lucasfilm. Both have had meetings set that were postponed -- on their end, not mine. They're more busy than I am."

So obviously the key question is: who is Hamill speaking for here? Does he mean himself and Carrie Fisher, or the whole trio of himself, Fisher, and Harrison Ford? Also, does anyone really think there is any chance that these characters will be written out of the sequel? Disney will pay them whatever they want to come back. After hearing about Lucasfilm's plans to do spin-off movies featuring characters like Han Solo and Boba Fett (and maybe Yoda, which I personally think is a bad idea), it's clear that the company plans to milk their pre-existing characters for all they're worth.

Hamill also seems to be hearing the same rumors that everyone else has about how the new trilogy could center around the children of the main characters from the first trilogy. He continues:

"I'm assuming, because I haven't talked to the writers, that these movies would be about our offspring -- like my character would be sort of in the Obi-Wan range [as] an influential character. … When I found out [while making the original trilogy] that ultimate good news/bad news joke – the good news is there's a real attractive, hot girl in the universe; the bad news is she's your sister – I thought, 'Well, I'm going to wind up like Sir Alec [Guinness]. I'm going to be a lonely old hermit living out in some kind of desert igloo with a couple of robots.'"

Again, that's just speculation from Hamill since he admits that he hasn't even spoken with Arndt yet. He does seem to have a sort of "all for one, one for all" mentality when it comes to Episode VII, though, because he does want to make sure that if one person returns, the entire group comes back to reprise their roles:

"Another thing I'd want to make sure of is are we going to have the whole gang back? Is Carrie and Harrison and Billy Dee and Tony Daniels, everybody that's around from the original [returning]? I want to make sure that everybody's on board here, rather than just one...I said to George that I wanted to go back to the way it was, in the sense that our [trilogy] was much more carefree and lighthearted and humorous – in my opinion, anyway...hope they find the right balance of CGI with practical effects. I love props, I love models, miniatures, matte paintings -- I'm sort of old school. I think if you go too far in the direction of CGI it winds up looking like just a giant a video game, and that's unfortunate. … If they listen to me at all, it'll be, 'Lighten up and go retro with the way it looks.'"

Seems like most of this is just Hamill spitballing about his feelings on the franchise, and not really offering anything concrete. Of course he'd love everyone to return - wouldn't you want to relive the glory days with your old friends if you were in his position? The only real piece of news we can pull from this is that he (and presumably at least one other person, since he said "we" above) hasn't signed a contract at this point. The rest is just some interesting speculation that happens to come from someone who starred in a Star Wars movie, but with the way J.J. Abrams likes to play things close to the chest, I'm really not believing much of anything until we hear it straight from him, Lucasfilm or Kathleen Kennedy herself.

Filed under Casting, Development, Movie News, Star Wars

From around the web: