First Images & Possible Scene Details From The Set Of STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII
As the crew of Star Wars: Episode VIII prepare for next week's shoot on Skellig Michael in Ireland, a few BTS images have mad their way online. No cast members yet, but director Rian Johnson was snapped, and we also have a report on the first scene that's being set up...
Though it's still very early days out on Skellig Michael, a location survey of the island has been completed, and the crew are busying themselves setting things up for the shoot next week. Thanks to a local newspaper and Star Wars 7 News, we have our first set pics as well as a behind-the-scenes report from a visitor to the island.
The images are not particularly revealing as no members of the cast have arrived yet, but director Rian Johnson, producer Ram Bergman, and head of photography Steve Yedlin were spotted. The report is more interesting, though a lot of it does seem to be speculation.
"Tents and tarps full of equipment were all over the island completely unguarded apart from one tent which lay on top of a fake sandy coloured rock built for the filming… My guess is Luke will be standing on that tomorrow. Talking to people who I can’t name as they were afraid of getting in trouble, we discovered that there were definitely droids already locked away on the island (presumably BB-8 or R2-D2 or both, but couldn’t confirm because they hadn’t seen any of the movies). Along with the droids were weapons, presumably a lightsaber or two. We also discovered that the set had been described as a “Jedi Monastery”, (although I don’t know the validity of that) and scenes were to have wind and rain machines, which we later discovered and took photos that you can see here."
One thing we do know for sure is that Mark Hamill's family are currently in the UK, which is where they were based when the actor was shooting his scenes on Skellig Michael for The Force Awakens - so it's probably safe to assume that Luke will factor into these scenes, as is presumed above. Keep an eye out for updates over the next couple of weeks.