Rumor has driven nearly all of the discussion surrounding Star Wars: Episode VII. The last week has seen the emergence of two whoppers that could be giving us the clearest indication where the next trilogy is headed. First, there was the apparent return of Harrison Ford as Han Solo, which had been speculated about for awhile. Then, a story stating that the next films would follow the children of Solo, Leia, and Luke Skywalker. That has inevitably brought us back to where we were last fall, speculating on the return of Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher.
Well, Hamill has again weighed in on the subject, and while he insists he hasn't met with writer Michael Arndt, it's clear he knows a thing or two. The obvious question, posed by Entertainment Tonight, was if he would come back for Episode VII...
Hamill: "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 while he hasn't met with Arndt just yet, Hamill has an idea of where things are headed, and it sounds an awful lot like what we've recently heard about....
Hamill: "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.'"
We already know that Hamill and Fisher met with Lucas before the Disney deal ever went public, so that was probably when his interest was gauged. Clearly, he wants to be a part of it, but only under certain conditions. For one thing, he doesn't want to be the only original cast member tor return, and he also has an idea about the tone....
Hamill: "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.
