Capetown Film Festival breakdown: Mark Hamill, John Carpenter, 'Falling Skies,' 'The Goonies'

Hamill courtesy Syfy
Entertainment Weekly’s first Capetown Film Festival (4/30-5/6) provided some geektacular moments last week.

Namely, a Falling Skies Q&A with key cast members Noah Wyle (Tom), Moon Bloodgood (Anne), Maxim Knight (Matt), and Drew Roy (Hal) along with showrunner, Remi Aubuchon. Also, a screening of Return of the Jedi was followed by a surprise Q&A with Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill. There was even Q&A with John Carpenter, where he talked about The Thing, and one with The Goonies. Read on for more...


Falling Skies
After a special screening of the first hour of the Season Three premiere, audience members at the TNT-sponsored event were treated to a SPOILER-revealing session.

On Tom’s new role as U.S. President, Wyle revealed, "I wanted to make sure there was a bit of a learning curve to his ability to lead and to be an orator."

"He’s gonna get stronger as the season goes on. He’s gonna get more comfortable in the role. At the beginning of the season he’s sort of acting presidential, rather than being presidential, but he gets better."

Being pregnant during an alien invasion is no walk in the park ... we’re guessing. Moon Bloodgood, who plays Anne, discusses her character’s pregnancy and the birth of the child in the season premiere, by saying, "Something’s very wrong with the baby."

"Anne doesn’t know what it is. She starts to investigate. People start to think it’s postpartum depression on my part. Everyone thinks I’m kind of nuts. But the baby is only acting peculiar around me. So what I do in my own mind is think, ‘Is something wrong with me or is something wrong with the child?'"

Falling Skies season three two-hour premiere is June 9 at 9 p.m. ET.

Mark Hamill
So much buzz has surrounded J.J. Abrams Star Wars Episode VII that when Mark Hamill surprised audiences on May the 4th in honor of Star Wars Day, questions turned to whether he’d be appearing with Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford in the new film.

We know they’ve been in talks with Lucas, and Hamill said that Fisher immediately said, "I’m in!" when asked about a role. Hamill discussed his thought on special effects, "We’ve got to find a proper balance between CGI and old-school models. I want to have a more organic look so that we don’t get into Roger Rabbit territory."

Hamill knew what a huge success Star Wars would be, and that if it didn’t do well at the box office, it would earn cult status. He also discussed how, when on the set of Star Wars, Lucas revealed that his plans for the film.

"He was talking about how, originally, it was four trilogies of 12 movies. But he cobbled it down to three trilogies of nine. I said, 'Why are we starting in the middle?' He said, ‘Well, um, this trilogy is the most commercial."

According to Collider, Hamill is optimistic about the new films.
"I’m one of you, I feel like you’re one of us. I’ll be in there fighting and trying to be as honest as I can be about what I think it is made these movies so special in the first place. It always starts with the script and that’s why I’m so encouraged by Michael Arndt’s involvement because I respect his writing so much. He’s a big fan of these movies, so hopefully we can make something that doesn’t make everyone want to find us, cut off our heads and throw it right in our faces."
Star Wars Episode VII is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2015.

Other fun moments from the CapeTown Film Fest included a visit with The Goonies featuring stars Corey Feldman (Mouth), Jeff Cohen (Chunk) and Robert Davi (Jake Fratelli).

Maybe not so fun, but scary, was a Q&A with John Carpenter regarding the five things we learned from his 1982 horror classic, The Thing. For example, due to a limited availability of special effects back then, Carpenter revealed, “There was a sequence written where the Thing attacks people from under the ice, and nobody could figure out how to do that.” He also revealed a bit about how reviled the movie was when it first came out.

The Festival ends Monday night with a sold old Star Trek Q&A with Leonard Nimoy.