Mark Hamill on his future with Episode VII

It seems that no matter what he’s working on, Mark Hamill will never be able to get away from the character that made him famous. While some actors lament how this can affect their careers, Hamill has gone the opposite way and has embraced his Skywalker notoriety. When news broke of the new forthcoming trilogy in the Star Wars saga Mark Hamill was once again thrust into the limelight, with every entertainment reporter around trying to pick his brain for details on the new movies. In a recent interview with ETonline Hamill didn’t have a lot of specifics to unveil, but he did have some rather choice quotes.

When asked if he was going to appear in the new film he said, “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.” This is great news for fans of the original trilogy as it just wouldn’t make sense to have other actors fill these roles. Let’s face it, no one wants to see someone other than Mark Hamill play Luke Skywalker. He also added this interesting bit, “I probably learn more from Entertainment Tonight than I do directly from Lucasfilm – like for instance, when George told us he wanted to do the next trilogy, he didn’t tell us it was going to be done for Disney. He saved that little nugget, and I read it online like anybody else.” Lucas always played details of the original trilogy close to the vest while filming, and it seems that continues to this day.

Hamill also seems to have a one for all attitude when it comes to his former cast mates signing on for Episode VII, saying, “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. And 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 guess I’ll have to tune into your show to figure out who’s on board.”

Though he is in the dark on the details of Episode VII, Hamill did have some ideas on where it may be headed. “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.’”

One of my biggest complaints about the prequels is that the overuse of CGI detracted a bit from the visuals, I actually thought all the old school effects of the original movies was more convincing, it seems I am not alone on this with Hamill stating, “I 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 though we have no new details here, Hamill does provide a great interview with some good insights. What do you guys think? What would you like to see happen in the new trilogy? Would you welcome seeing the original characters playing a role in the new trilogy, even if it were small?

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