Star Wars 8 based on old war films, director Rian Johnson reveals

Johnson organised a 'film camp' to show his cast and crew where he wanted to take the movie

(Getty Images)

Star Wars 8 will be based on classic war films, according to new director Rian Johnson.

Johnson told fans at the Star Wars Celebration in London last weekend that he had set up a “film camp” for his cast and crew to watch old movies before shooting began.

Bridge on the River Kwai, about prisoners of war in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid their Japanese captors, and Twelve O’Clock High, about a brigadier who rallies his demoralised troop of pilots films, became a “really personal part” of the new Star Wars epic. Johnson also screened black and white 1959 Soviet drama Letter Never Sent and 1964 Japanese film Three Outlaw Samurai.

Star Wars 8 will pick up where last movie The Force Awakens left off, with Daisy Ridley’s Rey meeting Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker on a desolate island. It is yet to receive a full title but is due to arrive in UK cinemas in December 2017.

Johnson also revealed at the London’s ExCeL fan convention that Star Wars 8 has been shooting in Ireland to add a “whole other texture”, before welcoming Alden Ehrenreich on stage to confirm him as the new Han Solo ahead of the character’s as-yet-untitled standalone prequel.

The Star Wars 8 gang recently celebrated at a wrap party in absolute style, taking to the Natural History Museum in London for a night of dancing and some extra special guests, an elite squad of dancing stormtroopers. Britain’s Got Talent finalists Boogie Storm took to the stage dressed in the costumes to perform a whole host of iconic dance routines, from the Nae Nae to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies”“.