Mark Hamill Talks In Detail About What He Wants To See In STAR WARS EPISODE VII
Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) talks about his surprise at finding out that he would be reunited with the original cast for J.J. Abrams' Star Wars Episode VII, his desire for the new film to "find a proper balance between CGI and old school FX" and much more! Check it out.
Mark Hamill made a special guest appearance at last night's EW CapeTown Film Festival 30th anniversary screening of Return of the Jedi, and IGN Movies has compiled a selection of quotes from his Q&A session with those lucky enough to be in attendance. Looking back on the making of that film, Hamill recalled George Lucas approaching him about his idea for more trilogies. "I don’t even think I believed that the third trilogy would feature us. I thought it would be all different characters. To my knowledge, we were just going to do a beginning, a middle and an end [in the original trilogy] and it was over." When it came to Episode VII, the actor - who in one of the worst kept secrets in Hollywood STILL hasn't been confirmed as appearing in the J.J. Abrams helmed sequel - once again mentioned his meeting with Lucas and Carrie Fisher last year. "We were trying to figure out, ‘What’s he going to talk about?’ Wait a second, I think he’s going to release these in 3D. Maybe he’s going to ask us to do publicity or something.’ We just had no idea. But my wife said, ‘What if he says, ‘We’re going to do more movies'?' I said, ‘Yeah, right!’ It wasn’t even on the radar for me, at all."
It was at this point that Hamill finally made specific mention of his involvement in Episode VII, confirming that he has met with them at least once. "I’ve only had one creative meeting about the new films, but I do remember saying, ‘We’ve got to find a proper balance between CGI and old school [FX]." This should come as music to the ears of those who found themselves cringing at the heavy use of green screen in the prequels. "That’s what the challenge is," he added. "To try and meet expectations of what you guys want. I think there’s nothing wrong with CGI, but I think you have to have a balance, because the camera perceives the width and the depth and the weight – even if it’s a miniature model, the camera just realizes that. So when you have too much CGI and the clouds are CGI and the trees are CGI and the buildings are CGI, you’re getting to a point where the figure in the shot is like a hybrid of an animated film and live-action. And I want it to have an organic look so that we don’t get into Roger Rabbit territory. But I don’t imagine that the priority is what I want!"
Finally, when one fan told Hamill that they would like to see Luke Skywalker as a Jedi Master in the film (similar to Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda in the original trilogy), the actor revealed that he would like to see the exact same thing and a Luke who is "Heavy on the Jedi mind tricks, less on the lightsaber duels. That one in Empire nearly killed me! Six weeks I’m being beaten within a n inch of my life on a daily basis! It was awful! And then it’s cut down to like six minutes. ‘Eh, it’s no big deal.’" Be sure to sound off with your thoughts on these comments below!
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