Mark Hamill: Lucasfilm 'Talking' with Original Cast for New "Star Wars" Film - East Idaho News
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Mark Hamill: Lucasfilm ‘Talking’ with Original Cast for New “Star Wars” Film

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GETTY 22113 StarWarsLukeLeia?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1361442769388Terry O’Neill/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — Mark Hamill, who played farmboy-turned Jedi Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy, says rumors he and his former co-stars Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford will reappear in the upcoming Episode VII are anything but.

“They’re talking to us,” Hamill tells Entertainment Tonight about the filmmakers behind the new trilogy, Disney-owned Lucasfilm.  “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.”

Hamill cautions, however, “I’d want to make sure we [are] going to have the whole gang back.”

Hamill insists, “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 producer Kathleen Kennedy.”

The actor also expressed hope the filmmakers would go “old school,” and use more models and other practical effects, instead of relying on computer generated effects, which were used in countless shots in the prequel trilogy.

Hamill explained he doesn’t know anything about the plot of Episode VII, though he supposes at his age now, the new trilogy, which launches in 2015, would focus on the children of the original cast’s characters.

“I’m assuming…my character would be sort of in the Obi-Wan range [as] an influential character,” Hamill says of Luke’s mentor, who was played by Alec Guinness in the original trilogy.

Speaking of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ewan McGregor, who played a younger version of the master Jedi in the Star Wars prequels, wants to wear the robe again.  Speaking to MTV News this week, McGregor said he hoped one of the Star Wars spin-off films Disney is hatching should feature his character.

“I think it’s a good idea,” McGregor enthused, saying the film could focus after the events of Episode III, which ends with Kenobi beginning a mysterious exile on an orphaned Luke’s adoptive home planet Tatooine.

“I don’t know what he did in the desert,” says McGregor of his character in the 17 or so years between Episode III and Episode IV.  “That might be my window, there, to tell that story…Could be quite exciting.  I’d be up for it, for sure, of course.”

So far, rumor has it two stand-alone films will center on the early adventures of space smuggler Han Solo and bounty hunter Boba Fett, but nothing has been set in carbonite.

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