That's just it. I see nostalgia as a trap most of the time. You want to recapture a feeling that is basically impossible to recapture. You aren't the same you that you were when you first saw it. The world isn't the same world. The characters won't be the same characters.
Sticking older versions of the original characters into the film is going to have, in my opinion, the opposite effect of nostalgia: it will instead remind you of how much has changed, rather than preserving what came before. Best to let them always remain young heroes in your mind and on your screen.
Instead, I think that the GOAL of nostalgia -- to create the same FEELING you had before -- can be achieved better by using new characters, new actors, and telling a new story.
This is something that, I think, is actually counter-intuitive, so it doesn't surprise me that studios tend to default to "Remember that time that Han said 'I know' and Luke said 'I have a bad feeling about this' and there were TIE Fighters and X-wings and a wookie? That was cool." They do this by just trotting out the same stuff as before, making "in-joke" references back to the originals, etc. To me, this only highlights the differences between then and now. Seeing a grizzled old Harrison Ford phoning in Han Solo-isms won't return you to your childhood; it will remind you of how old you are.
Honestly, I don't think they even need that. You could just as easily push the story three generations into the future, safely removing everyone from anything approaching a DIRECT connection to the OT, while still maintaining the overall feel of the story. Maybe you have Luke appear as a Force ghost or on some Holocron recording, providing guidance generations later or something, but that's it. The continuity can be achieved with the universe and setting itself, and the concepts introduced. You don't need character continuity. What happened next is that everyone got old and died and some had kids, and those kids got old and died or died younger than they should have. That's what happened next. Tell a new story with new characters instead, I say. We can always do a DVD extra sequence like what happened on the Animal House Double Secret Probation DVD.
The more I think about it, the less I think it could be done WITHOUT being cheesy. Think about it. Luke's the only one with an absolutely clear and obvious path in the future -- he becomes a Jedi Master and instructs the next generation of Jedi. What about Leia? Does she have kids? Does she marry Han? Does she become president of the Restored Republic? Does she form a new royal dynasty on New Alderaan? And the more "grey" moral characters are even harder to deal with. Does Han settle down? Plenty of people think that's unrealistic and unappealing. But I think it's equally unrealistic and unappealing to see him tottering around the galaxy at age 70-something, still making his way as a smuggler. O h, wait. I get it. BEcause he's older now, he's more powerful and has become a smuggling crime lord. Or a shipping magnate. I mean, come on. Is THIS the Han Solo you really want to see? Not me. And Lando, too. What, he's now back to being an administrator? A general? Each of the characters would, in my mind, seem diminished from who they were in the OT if we were to show them now. In the OT they're legends. In the NT (I'm coining that now -- New Trilogy), they'd just be mortals. Do you really want to see Hercules get old and grey?
Low hanging fruit, man.
