A title not a million miles away from my long-running series of articles on StarWars.com back in the day, Lucas Seastrom takes a look at the long history between Star Wars, George Lucas and the UK, the country he came to make the original Star Wars and – thanks to favourable financial considerations and most vitally the world-class craftsmanship of the crews and skills of the actors on hand – kept on returning, a tradition Lucasfilm continue to this very day.
Although the various Star Wars crews had spent years working at familiar English studios like Elstree, the production team for Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) settled into a location brand new to the saga. Younger than Elstree by nearly ten years, Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire had arguably become the most iconic of England’s movie-making facilities. It was home to the James Bond series among countless others like David Lean’s Oliver Twist (1948) and the musical adventure Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). As of this writing, it’s now hosted more Star Wars productions than any other studio location in the world. In addition to all of the new Star Wars feature films, Andor (2022) and The Acolyte have also been made there (along with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny).
