Via mirror.co.uk:

It seems the Force was strong with George Lucas, who asked him to reprise his role three decades before the new film was announced

Star Wars fans were amazed when it was revealed the space saga would return for a third series in 2015 – but it seems it wasn’t a surprise to everyone.

In this amazing clip from 1983, Mark Hamill – who played Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy and will reprise the role in The Force Awakens next year – revealed George Lucas had already asked him if he’d consider returning to the franchise.

While that’s strange enough, it gets weirder when the actor, now 63, said that the filmmaker’s predicted time line for him taking on the part again was 2011 – only four years before the new movie will hit the big screen.

Details for the story are still being kept under wraps – although the first trailer is set to debut in the US on Friday – but it seems 30 years ago there were plans for Luke to take over Obi-Wan Kenobi’s guardian role.

He said: “I’m so loyal to George and I owe him so much. He, at one time, said ‘Would you consider playing an Obi-Wan-type character handing Excalibur down to the next generation?’

“I said, ‘When would that be?’ And at the time he said, ‘Oh, around 2011.’ I thought, gee, as much as I’d like to have a job lined up at the turn of the century I was figuring out how old I’d be at that point and I thought…well, I don’t know.”