Rumour: Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker no longer in Star Wars: Episode VII?

Here’s what we know for sure so far about the plot of Star Wars: Episode VII:…………………………….. That’s right, nothing. The only thing we’ve had to go on, were some educated guesses based on the people involved.

But one of those guesses, which always seemed more educated than most, may no longer be true, if a certain badass motherf@#$er is to be believed.

When Disney bought over Lucasfilm last year, part of the deal was that George Lucas’ original treatments for Episodes VII and up (some sources say up to Episode XII – that’s 12 for you non-Romans) would be included. And when Episode VII was officially announced, the sort of unconfirmed, but generally accepted wisdom was that director JJ Abrams and writers Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt would be working off of those treatments.

Treatments which purportedly featured the return of an older version of the original trio of stars: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford). This was “confirmed” when reports came in that Lucas and newly appointed Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy had met with the three.

According to Samuel L. Jackson though, things may have changed.

While on the Late Show with David Letterman, and asked about what he knew about the heavily touted sequel, Jackson revealed that he had recently talked to Mark Hamill and Ewan McGregor (who played the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequel trilogy and is rumoured to return as a Force Ghost) while on the set of Matthew Vaughn’s The Secret Service, which they are all shooting together. And according to what they told Jackson, neither of them have ever been contacted by director JJ Abrams about Star Wars.

Here’s the video:

Now while he starred in the prequel trilogy as Jedi master Mace Windu, and is quite the popular fellow, I doubt that Jackson finds himself on the inside circle when it comes to something as secretive as this, which doesn’t exactly make him the most reliable source.

What we do know for a fact though, is that something changed on the film’s writing recently, when Michael Arndt was removed from the writing team after already doing quite a bit of work, with Abrams now taking over writing duties. Could the direction of the script also have changed, to the detriment of Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s involvement?

I’d like to think that with the pretty sum that Disney paid George Lucas, they won’t just toss out the treatments he did wholesale, so if the script has changed it may just be to either minimize the original trio’s involvement, or perhaps even pushing back their contributions to one of the later Episodes. Or it could very well just be that Hamill has just been sworn to secrecy about his involvement and didn’t want to tell Jackson anything (especially considering how he has a habit of letting superpowered cats out of bags).

Either way, with December 18, 2015 still a long way off, anything could happen.

Last Updated: November 20, 2013