Mark Hamill Talks STAR WARS: EPISODE VII

No day without a Star Wars! Yesterday, rumor from ShowBiz411 claimed that Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford were all set to return in Episode VII, even though an earlier report said a deal with Ford is not yet complete and it could be ‘months’ before he signs. In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight Online, Hamill confirmed that the original cast were in talks to reprise their roles, although no contracts have yet been signed.

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.

Furthermore, Hamill strongly hinted at how Luke will be depicted in the sequel:

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.

Hamill just wants the whole squad getting back together, including Billy Dee Williams and Anthony Daniels who played C-3PO and he chases the next desire hoping the new movies wouldn’t be quite so dark:

I said to George that I wanted to go back to the way it was, in the sense that ours 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.’

So anyway, the only real piece of news in these pieces is that he hasn’t signed a contract at this point. Michael Arndt is still working on the Star Wars: Episode VII script, tentatively scheduled to open in theaters by 2015.