As details continue to flood in regarding the just-announced Star Wars: Episode VII, EW managed to catch up with Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, who reveals that he was made aware of plans for a third trilogy last August.
"[George Lucas] asked Carrie [Fisher] and I to have lunch with him and we did," Hamill says, "I thought he was going to talk about either his retirement or the 'Star Wars' TV series that I’ve heard about — which I don’t think we were going to be involved in anyway, because that takes place between the prequels and the ones we were in and, if Luke were in them, he’d be anywhere from a toddler to a teenager so they’d get an age-appropriate actor — or the 3-D releases. So when he said, 'We decided we’re going to do Episodes VII, VIII, and IX,” I was just gobsmacked. “What? Are you nuts?!” [Laughs]"
Although Hamill learned of the plans for more films, he was as surprised as anyone at the announcement of Lucasfilm being bought by Disney when he read about it online yesterday. He also doesn't know what involvement - if any - he'll have in future Star Wars films, but he remains optimistic as a fan.
"I can see both sides of it," he says. "Because in a way, there was a beginning, a middle, and an end and we all lived happily ever after and that’s the way it should be — and it’s great that people have fond memories, if they do have fond memories. But on the other hand, there’s this ravenous desire on the part of the true believers to have more and more and more material. It’s one of those things: people either just don’t care for it or are passionate about it. I guess that defines what cult movies are all about."
Hamill reiterates that Kathleen Kennedy will be handling a lot of the work on the new films, leaving Lucas to his newfound retirement and plans for a charitable educational foundation funded by the multi-billion dollar sale