CO said:

I really don't see what the big deal about their age is as long as they play their respective ages in the movies. Now if they were setting Episode VII five years after ROTJ and they were trying to pull of Han, Luke, and Leia in their 30's, then I would understand everyone's anger. But it sounds like Episode VII will take place 30-40 years after ROTJ, and Han, Luke, and Leia will all be in their 60/70's, so it won't look ridiculous at all on screen.

Exactly.

In the novels, 45 years have now passed since the events of ANH. When Ep7 starts filming next year, 38 years will have passed since the start of principal photography on Star Wars. Hamill and Ford were both playing characters six years younger than their respective ages. So, the ages of Han and Luke are probably synced up to their actors now.

Nineteen-year-old Carrie was playing a nineteen-year-old Leia in '76. She now looks older than she is? Doesn't matter, Leia's gonna be older than she is anyway!

I kinda hope they're not the main characters anyway. Part of me wants to think Abrams - whether or not Kennedy even had this in mind when hiring him - is gonna introduce us to a whole new cast of characters just as he did in Star Trek. Yes, I know what you're thinking, "but, those characters in Star Trek already existed." Yeah, but the way JJ pulled it off made it feel like we were meeting them again for the first time.

Sure, it's a little more of a challenge to introduce characters no one's ever met before, but I would absolutely love it if halfway through the movie our protagonist is saved by a mysterious, cloaked figure who is then revealed to be Luke Skywalker. Yeah, I'm just theorizing, and all of this ultimately depends on Arndt's script, but it's fun to speculate....