At Entertainment Weekly’s CapeTown Film Festival tonight, a 30th anniversary screening of Return of the Jedi -- coinciding with May the 4th, AKA Star Wars Day -- ended with a huge surprise guest in the form of Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill.

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Hamill shared his memories of making not just Return of the Jedi but the entire Star Wars trilogy, and yes, he talked about how Star Wars is once again a part of his life, with Star Wars: Episode VII in the works, under J.J. Abrams' direction. Officially, Lucasfilm still hasn’t confirmed any cast members, including Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford, but Hamill, without ever saying, “Yes, I’m in Episode VII,” certainly seemed to be all but confirming it with the statements he made.Hamill recalled that while making Return of the Jedi, he was absolutely sure it was the end of the series, “because we had a beginning, middle and an end.” But during that period, George Lucas did talk to him about his bigger ideas for a series of trilogies – initially four different trilogies, and then three. Still, said Hamill, “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.”He compared making Jedi to the final semester of school, saying, “We knew it was going to be the last time we’d see everybody. I’m still in a state of shock that they want to do more.”When it came to details on Episode VII, Hamill remarked to the audience, “First of all, you probably know more about it than I do.” He brought up a meeting he’s mentioned before with George Lucas and Carrie Fisher last year, in which Lucas revealed the intention to make new films.Going into that meeting, Hamill recalled, “We were trying to figure out, ‘What’s he going to talk about?’” Hamill said he thought, “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. And I had sort of settled into my elderly recluse phase of my career.”While talking about how much he loved filming the Dagobah sequences for The Empire Strikes Back, which were shot on a soundstage with a lot of practical effects, Hamill then made his most specific mention of his involvement in Episode VII, revealing, “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].”After the crowd cheered this statement, Hamill added, “That’s what the challenge is, is 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." He then added, with a laugh, “But I don’t imagine that the priority is what I want!”Hamill stressed he still doesn’t know the full plan for the new trilogy, and recalled how Lucas, when telling him and Fisher about the new films, didn’t reveal he also was selling Lucasfilm to Disney - which Hamill learned about like most people, as the news broke to the press. But Hamill added, “They haven’t done too bad with the Marvel franchise. They did really well with the Muppets. The more you think about it, the more it makes sense. Plus, it was nice to see George seeming so happy!” Hamill explained that, “He seemed happier than I’d seen him in a long time,” especially compared to when he was making the original Star Wars and was notoriously unhappy with how things were going and compromises he had to make.An audience member told Hamill they hoped to see Luke be a true Jedi Master in the new films, in the manner of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. Hamill said he’d love to see a Luke, “Heavy on the Jedi mind tricks, less on the lightsaber duels. That one in Empire nearly killed me!” He explained how that sequence took six weeks to shoot, “Six weeks I’m being beaten within a n inch of my life on a daily basis!It was awful!” He smiled, recalling, “And then it’s cut down to like six minutes. ‘Eh, it’s no big deal.’”As the Q&A was wrapping up, Hamill noted he had to be careful about what he said, because something small can be blown out of proportion, using the example of when he said he felt that the original trilogy was funnier than the prequels. Hamill stressed he felt, “The prequels weren’t meant to be [as funny]. They were much more solemn. I’m glad they had their own identity and atmosphere. You just have to be really careful, because I don’t want to criticize other people’s work. I love George. I don’t want to hurt his feelings. It’s like you can criticize America, but if you go over to Europe and you hear other people criticizing it, it gets your dander up.”He added, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, ‘Jar-Jar was supposed to be irritating! He’s irritating to the other characters in the movie!’ I defend the prequels, totally, because that’s George’s choice. He earned the right to do what he wanted to do. He became a studio. He wasn’t just the director and writer; he was the studio as well. So those weren’t sort of the movies he wanted to make. Those were exactly the movies he wanted to make.”