star wars movie the force awakens full movie

The runway, once the longest in Europe, was broken up and used in the Newbury bypass. In 1997, after the base closed, a group of businessman bought the land from the Ministry of Defence, formed the Greenham Common Community Trust and transferred 750 acres to the council. The Resistance Base, to which everyone returns, where Finn is reunited with the presumed-dead Dameron, and C-3P0 with the sleep-mode R2-D2, is the old RAF base at Greenham Common on the A339 south of Newbury in Berkshire – this time, those looming mountains were digitally added.īuilt in 1942, the air base was used by British and American planes during WWII and the Cold War, but for anyone over the age of 30 in the UK, the words Greenham Common conjure up the Women's Peace Camps which grew up outside the perimeter fence in the early Eighties as a protest against the use of cruise missiles on UK soil. The Resistance fighters arrive to save the day, headed by General Leia Organa ( Carrie Fisher) and C-3P0 ( Anthony Daniels) – barely recognisable with his new red arm. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens: the planet 'Takodana': Lake Windermere, Lake District, Cumbria | Photograph: Tadas Zvinklys

Stormtroopers attack at the usually peaceful Derwentwater, (where the hills of the Borrowdale Fells have been digitally removed), while the X-wing fighters of the Resistance arrive over Thirlmere, to the south. They’re inevitably spotted and when Kylo Ren sends forces to re-capture the map, the fight is on. Here, Rey is mysteriously drawn to the old light sabre that once belonged to Luke Skywalker. The lakes and the shoreline of ‘Takodana’ are just south of Keswick, in Cumbria’s beautiful Lake District. “I didn’t know there was so much green in the whole galaxy!” exclaims Rey as two outstandingly beautiful UK locations replace the barren sands of Abu Dhabi. It’s on 'Jakku' too that Finn ( John Boyega) deserts the ranks of the Stormtroopers after witnessing a massacre and hooks up with scavenger Rey ( Daisy Ridley), who lives by trading recycled junk for food.Īlong with BB-8, the spherical droid who’s carrying a vital section of the sought-after map, Rey and Finn commandeer the rusting, near-abandoned Millennium Falcon, unwittingly finding themselves alongside Han Solo ( Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca ( Peter Mayhew) and heading to the lush green planet of 'Takodana' for help from Maz Kanata ( Lupita Nyong’o) at her multi-cultural, multi-species cantina.

Fast And Furious 7, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and even rival franchise Star Trek Beyond also seem to have found the offer irresistible. And it’s no longer Tunisia but the Rub' al Khali (Empty Quarter) desert, near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, thanks perhaps to 30% rebates provided by the government to encourage film production. No, that desert planet isn’t Tatooine, it’s Jakku. Abrams began work on Episode VII a scant TWO YEARS ago, but he was fortunately able to recruit Star Wars vets like Doug Chiang and Iain McCaig to help visualize the state of a galaxy far, far away thirty years after Return of the Jedi.Ĭheck out the gallery below for 10 of the coolest scrapped ideas from The Force Awakens, with as many examples from the book as we could incorporate! Spoiler alert for those who have not yet seen the movie.Luke Skywalker has vanished, the First Order has replaced the Empire and the Resistance is once again striking back.ĭameron Poe ( Oscar Isaac) has been given a secret map to the whereabouts of Skywalker, now the last Jedi, but the First Order is hot on its trail in the person of sinister Kylo Ren ( Adam Driver).

To give you an idea of how accelerated the process was on The Force Awakens, George Lucas began writing the original Star Wars in 1973 for an eventual 1977 release, and began plotting and designing the prequels in 1994 for an eventual 1999 release of The Phantom Menace. This development process is explored in fascinating detail for Abrams Books’ newly-released “The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” and we got a chance to scour the whole book from cover-to-cover to find the most interesting pieces of leftover brilliance.

Whether it’s for story purposes or something simply being technically unworkable within the budget/schedule, a lot of really cool concepts have passed the saga by and Star Wars: The Force Awakens is no exception. If being an obsessive Star Wars fan has taught us anything, it’s that the various “making of” books that crop up shortly after a new movie is released always reveal even more AMAZING ideas that never made it to the screen. 10 Amazing Scrapped Ideas from Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star wars movie the force awakens full movie