After the recent news about the possible Star Wars spin offs in the works from Disney (see here for more details ), we now have even more news on the subject. Total Film shared some incredible news for Star Wars fans world-wide. The first was a piece of news from scooper El Mayimbe (writer for Latino Review) who announced on Fox News that Harrison Ford was returning as Han Solo and that it was a “done deal”.

This is shocking news, especially as Harrison was famously quoted as wanting to kill of his character in Empire Strikes Back. Maybe Fords return to the Sci-Fi genre with Cowboys and Aliens got him excited about the Star Wars universe once more, or maybe he was of a mind-set “If you want something doing right, you have to do it yourself”. He could also just be in it for the money. Before too much speculation could take place however, more news was released (again from Total Film), with an Entertainment Tonight interview with Mark Hamill. Hamill had a slightly different story to tell. Though George Lucas had been in talks with him about role reprises, nothing had been signed at this time.

Hamill said in his interview…

[quote]“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.”[/quote]

This shows a certain level of respect for the original actors. The fact George Lucas has spoken to Mark Hamill about what could happen in the new franchise would indicate that he really wants the original cast back to play their parts. The fact that they would write the characters out of the timeline, if no one was interested in reprising their roles again also shows a certain level of respect, but this time for the fans (as well as the actors) who are going to have trouble seeing these beloved characters played by different actors, especially when all the original cast are still alive.

[quote] “And another thing I’d want to make sure of is are we going to have the whole gang back? Is Carrie [Fisher] and Harrison [Ford] and Billy Dee [Williams] 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.”[/quote]

This is also great news, with Hamill wanting all the crew on board we would have continuity throughout the series of movies. This is exactly what the fans want to see, the old chemistry of our favorite Jedi’s and smugglers all in the same movie. It is great news that Hamill knows what the fans want, and the fact he to only wants to work with his fellow Star Wars cast members. Hamill pleased the fans even more by saying he favored practical effects over CGI, something that worked against Episode 1-3.

[quote] “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.”[/quote]

A lot of the stories told after Episode 6 do focus on Luke Skywalker taking a more Obi-Wan role in the universe and a lot of the other stories focus on Leia and Hans children who are also gifted with the force. This would open up a great wealth of story possibilities as well as the fun fact we would be seeing how these characters have evolved since Episode 6. Though it is not clear if Harrison has signed or not, it is looking incredibly likely that we may see a return of the old cast, possibly with a married Han and Leia fighting over who is going to take the kids to Jedi training, while a white-haired Chewbacca plays chess with C3P0.

Keep checking Grizzly Bomb for more updates.