Ahead of the world premiere tonight, Disney has released a brand new behind-the-scenes featurette for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The film was kept under lock and key throughout shooting, just as The Force Awakens was, but that didn’t prevent writer/director Rian Johnson from using real locations to bring the environments of The Last Jedi to life. This featurette highlights those locations and singles out how much of a difference it makes when filmmakers go out of their way to use real environments rather than try to craft everything on a soundstage and fill out the backgrounds with CG.
As you can see, Croatia stood in for the new hoity-toity planet Canto Bight, where Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) encounter new character DJ, while Bolivia brought the new planet Crait to life in stunning detail.
It’s a really fascinating if all-too-brief look at the hard work that went into making The Last Jedi a reality, and it’s pretty crazy they were able to shoot all of this stuff in real locations without too many leaks.
Check out the new Star Wars: The Last Jedi featurette below and check back later tonight when we’ll round up the first reactions to the movie. The film also stars Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Laura Dern, Anthony Daniels, Lupita Nyong’o, and Gwendoline Christie. Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens in theaters on December 15th.
via openload movies