For all of the secrecy surrounding J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII (and there has been a ton), the eyes of roving spies have been trained on one international location that we know will house some important scenery from next year’s sequel. Skellig Michael – a remote Irish island off the coast of Ireland – has been the site of multiple Star Wars shots, and now possible leaked footage may reveal the point of the island… at least, in Abrams’ reformed universe.
Footage from Star Wars: Episode VII reportedly leaked onto YouTube days ago, and has since been pulled. MovieWeb reports on what was seen in the footage, though, and reveals a few key plot details in the process. Needless to say, we will be getting into Star Wars spoilers here, so stop reading right now if you do not want to know more about what could happen in Episode VII.
The footage, which has a Walt Disney watermark, carries the label "Luke’s Refuge," and shows – according to the Web site TechnoBuffalo – a "bearded man in a Jedi cloak kneeling in some sort of cave or small shrine while another man lingers at the door, casting a shadow." That site managed to grab a few screen caps before the video was pulled from YouTube (and the account deleted). You can click here to view them.
What are we looking at here? There are several options. As we reported a while ago, J.J. Abrams shot test footage on Skellig Michael, and this could be it. We might not even be seeing Mark Hamill in that robe, but rather stand ins who are walking through motions so Abrams and his team can figure out how to light and block a scene (on a difficult island landscape, this type of rehearsal is probably crucial). There’s also the very real possibility that this is fan-made Star Wars footage taken after Abrams and his crew departed Skellig Michael. It might not be Skellig Michael, at all.
If it’s a fan-made hoax, those involved went through a lot of trouble to film the scenes, put them on a laptop, record the footage off of the lap top, then re-record them with a cell phone to post them on YouTube… only to immediately pull it down and delete the account. At the same time, the imagery doesn’t look official enough to be from Abrams’ Star Wars film, but I do think it could be part of his preparation, and possible pre-production.
We have been hearing rumors for a while now that Skellig Michael will serve as the location to which Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) has retreated following the events of Return of the Jedi. This leaked footage confirms those notions, though cementing the veracity of the imagery is another game, altogether.
