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Return to Endor? Star Wars 7 looks to be filming in the Forest of Dean

Location was previously used by Doctor Who and Merlin

Christopher Hooton
Tuesday 08 July 2014 18:22 BST
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The Forest of Dean has become 'Winnebago city'
The Forest of Dean has become 'Winnebago city' (Ian Cooper/Twitter)

Dozens and dozens of trailers have arrived at Puzzlewood in the Forest of Dean, leading to speculation that Star Wars: Episode 7 has arrived in town, possibly to film scenes set on the Ewok planet Endor or in the Dagobah system.

The BBC quizzed security, production team members and the owner of Puzzlewood, none of whom would confirm or deny whether it was JJ Abrams' sequel shooting in the forest.

The location is popular for TV and film productions, with Doctor Who, Merlin and Atlantis having filmed there, but judging by the rows and rows of Winnebagos this is no ordinary TV series.

With its lush greenery and twisted trunks, Puzzlewood might be being used for the Ewoks' home or Yoda's place of refuge, or might be a new planet we've never seen before.

Forest of Dean is a popular filming location (Picture: Puzzlewood.net)
Merlin films in Puzzlewood (Picture: Puzzlewood.net)

If it is Endor, we could see Han Solo and Chewie return there once Harrison Ford is out of hospital.

Star Wars: Episode VII will go on hiatus for a couple of weeks in August, but is still set for its 18 December, 2015 release date.

Clerks director Kevin Smith visited the film's Pinewood Studios home last week and was moved to tears by the experience.

"So we go to the set and they're actually shooting - and this is what I can't tell you, what they were shooting - but what I saw, I absolutely loved," he gushed.

Endor in Return of the Jedi (Picture: Lucasfilm)
Yoda in the Dagobah system (Picture: Lucasfilm)

"It was tactile, it wasn't a series of f**king green and blue screens in which later on digital characters would be added. It was there, it was happening."

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"I saw uniforms, I saw artillery that I haven't seen since I was a kid. I saw them shooting an actual sequence in a set that is real - I walked across the set, there were explosions - and it looked like a shot right out of a f**king Star Wars movie.

He continued: "[Abrams is] building a tactile world, a world you can touch. And he's replicating it with all the love of somebody that has the world's greatest collection of Star Wars figures."

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