Dan Mindel Shares Photos from The Force Awakens Set!
Director of Photography Daniel Mindel recently updated his Instagram account with a dozen behind the scenes photos from the filming of The Force Awakens. Check them out…
The most interesting photo (the title image) gives us a glimpse at the impressive set built at Pinewood, featuring the snowy forest and Adam Driver dueling with John Boyega. You can see the impressive scale of the set, and we finally have a look at the famous lightsaber props, which were glowing with real light.
Here are some more cool photos:
You can see many more photos on Dan Mindel’s official Instagram account HERE.
Founder of SWNN, MNN and The Cantina forums.
Born on April 24, 1980.
Beautiful just beautiful
Fooled me! The forest looked so real.
That forest set was amazing, but I also liked Chewie behind the monitors. 🙂
https://www.instagram.com/p/_9gKd6vKxn
Yup, the Forest scene was beautiful – but I have to give Tarentino credit in 8 shooting on location. Having to wait weeks so the snowfall would look right between takes.
studio set forest are not new ( check out the band of brothers episode”bastogne” for how far they can go with that ) but they shot with real lightsabers or something on that set ???
they used the FX Lightsabers instead of regular sticks they used in the other movies, can you imagine how much that did for the Actors to believe the were fighting with actual lightsabers?
wow, can’t believe those things held up slamming against each other in an actual fight
Its fiberglass ones like they use in Jedi classes.
probably helps the lighting crew and special effect team n all …. something to key off.
They did that to get the lighting correct in a dark setting when it would reflect off their face and cloths. I’m sure it spark childhood memories for most of them.
Off-topic
Hey SWNN, how about a small homage to this man? http://www.people.com/article/boba-fett-jason-wingreen-actor-dead
The real Fett!? I’ll miss him for sure.
Hated the cinematography, Glad Mindel’s gone now. I liked the duel but it was far from the best due to the trees getting in the way of things and shooting from so far away. I hope the next ones are more like Bespin in that we see more tighter shots of the actors of the dueling.
My goodness, you’re such a sourpuss.
He’s extremely picky, as some other fans are. I think some people foolishly believe if everything in the movie was done their way there would be no complaints from anyone. Millions of people posting on the internet, one thing that will never fail no matter who writes or directs, etc. Complaints will always be there.
He’s not picky. He’s looking for negative attention, which he gets in abundance.
It’s as jarring watching it with the other six films as it is watching Indy 4 after the first trilogy, Whatever the next one is like it will have better cinematography for sure,
Hell people said it was jarring watching the prequels after the OT. I am betting if there were an internet in 1980 some would say ESB was jarring after watching the first SW.
Actually, No we didn’t because it was made by a filmaker who wasn’t driven by corporate greed. Do some research before posting,
Ha! That’s why Kurtz and Kershner didn’t care about going over-time and over-budget and that Lucas was pissed that he had to ask Bank of America for a loan to finish ESB, to the point his relationship with Kurtz began to sour. And there were so many changes to Empire on-set that Lucas usually doesn’t take credit for it (among reports that he thinks its the worst one, but I can’t really trust a line from him, he’s not the best verbal communicator, might have been joking – http://www.slashfilm.com/geroge-lucas-says-empire-strikes-back-was-the-worst-star-wars-movie/ )
Exactly! Kershner was a journeyman director who made some bad films but far as getting the best performances out of his actors he still number one of all the SW directors in the saga.
I can’t read the internet from 1980, Because there really wasn’t one like there is now. But if you think they can make a SW film no one will complain about, you’re nuts.
No, But there are plenty of books out there that cover the general reception and even members here who have their own first hand acounts. I never said anyone could but very few do about ANH and TESB compared with all the other episodes.
Books cover a few known reviews, they don’t let just anyone post as the internet does.
Not paid ones but man on the street regular fan ones.
Love to see these books
They touched on it a bit in those making of hardcover ones that came out a few years back.
Three weeks later and you’re still ragging on the same points like they’re an original or valid critique.
Trolling, trolling, trolling, keep that neckbeard trolling, I think his mind is broken, troll nigh!
I know right
lol
Hmm… I thought I heard way back that the forest was the same as was used for the final Potter. Somewhere near pinewood. I guess not. So it was indoors… interesting….
yup
As much as I liked the forest scene, and I like it very much, always felt it reminded me of the Japanese garden outside the House of Blue Leaves in Kill Bill Vol 1. Which isn’t necessary a bad thing.
I liked that in this movie we actually got cool new force stuff. Instead of force super jump and force super speed this movie introduced force mind reading, force KO, and force torture.
completely agree. i was legitimately shocked when i saw kylo freeze the blaster shot in mid air for the first time. we’ve seen vader block shots before but to stop it like that blew my mind… which i wouldn’t have thought possible after all they’ve done already. 🙂
The force freeze is Kylo Ren’s signature ability as the force choking was with Vader. He freezes the laser bolt, as he also freezes Poe and Rey.
Mind reading isn’t new, Vader could read Luke’s mind, that’s how he figured out he’s got a sister.
Well its still awesome
Vader’s “mind-reading” powers were more empathic than telepathic in nature. He could sense feelings, not read minds. Kylo seems to be the first fully-fledged mind reader in the SW movie universe.
Wrong.
“Her resistance to the mind probe is considerable. It’ll be some time before I can extract information from her.” – Vader to Tarkin regarding Leia in ANH.
The mind probe Vader refers to in ANH is an artificial mind probe as shown by the needle that is shown moving closer to Leia. It is not force-based mind probe.
That would be more than a little confusing, wouldn’t it? Using the same term (mind probe) to speak of w/e drug Vader used on Leia and a Force-user’s ability to actually probe or scan someone’s mind through the Force, I mean.
Do you have proof of this? And I don’t mean proof as in this is explained in “X, Y or Z book”. I mean proof as in the actual films. Because otherwise, this is just your personal interpretation of the events, not the actual facts.
It’s cool that you have your own interpretation of things, but so do I. And to my understanding, there is nothing to indicate that Kylo Ren’s a mind-reader, while Vader was only capable of probing people’s feelings.
I’m thoroughly convinced that Vader wasn’t talking about something like truth serum when he mentioned a mind probe. In fact, I’m sure that the word and the concept itself were born at that point in ANH. But again, if you have proof to prove me wrong, from the actual films, I’ll be glad to stand corrected.
Yes! Mabruno you are right about this! It was reference to the mind probe droid.
Don’t forget force stopping blaster bolts.
Forreal! Geez I am so hapy when Kylo is on the bridge he didn’t super jump up to Rey and Finn, I literally would have walked out
Question: did you walk out of ESB when Luke did that super jump out of the carbonite shaft?
If I was alive back then I would of! Every time I watch it it looks dumber and dumber! I mean people are whining about Rey being too powerful but Luke literally just learned how to levitate rocks and all of the sudden he is super bouncing.
Force mind reading, as you call it, has been there since the beginning. It’s called mind probing. Vader tried it with Leia in ANH, but he obviously came up empty handed, just like Ren with Rey.
The other 2 “new” tricks you mention (KO & torture) could be accomplished through Force choking (as Luke did with the Gamorrean guards that he put to sleep in RotJ, for instance), so they’re really nothing new.
Nah Vader needed a big torture ball and even though you could choke someone as a torture device or do it til they pass out that is not what Ren did.
Says who? Vader could’ve been using the torture ball just to intimidate Leia. Or he could’ve filled the needle with truth serum, since using the Force obviously wouldn’t work on her. Since the door is promptly closed when he enters her cell with the droid, the result of the interrogation is left to our imagination.
As far as I’m concerned, what Ren did was cut off the flow of oxygen to the brain, which is how you render someone unconscious. Obviously, the same principle applies to a Force-choke. So to me, this pretty much comes up to the same thing and it’s certainly not something as new as Force super-anything as seen in the prequels.
Yeah but if he had done that it would of taken a minute for her to get knocked out. I think this is just like Vader blocking the bolts with his hands, it is not explainable. And common Vader clearly was using that big probe to torture her.
Actually, now that I think of it, Qui-Gon did the same exact thing to Jar Jar in TPM. Obi-Wan even told him, “You overdid it” when he put the Gungan to sleep while they were on their way to Theed. And it didn’t take Qui-Gon more than a second or 2 to do it. So yeah, there’s that precedent of a Force KO, too.
The mind probe has been used several times before. Yoda was also able to read Luke’s mind in Dagobah, when he nods knowingly and tells him to clear his mind of questions. So, even if Vader didn’t use a mind probe on Leia to read her mind, I think there’s evidence enough to confirm that these tricks were not really anything new. At least to me they aren’t.
Either way it was cooler than ever in this movie
So glad this final fight between Rey Finn and Kylo was intimate and on a more personal level. To many bad movies like Man of Steel and Age of Ultron went the route of big CGI death matches that look better suited for a video game.
Man of steel at least had great music. Hans Zimmer rules!
Yeah, the contrast was needed to deflect from that trench run, which was the one reference that was too many for me, I didn’t mind DS3 until that.
how snoke can be plagueis: when snoke realized his experiments bore fruit he moves to replace palpatine as his apprentice. unfortunately palpatine knows that it would be the end of him if he gets his hands on that boy. moving in he tries to kill plagueis in his sleep. disfiguring him but plaguies uses a illusion to fool his apprentice. he escapes and knowing the prophecy comes to the conclusion that the sith are unworthy of being servants of the dark side and returns to his birth name…snoke. he puts himself to a form of force death and binds its longeivity to anakins life force. anakin dies on endor causing snoke to awaken. he finds out what happened and stalks the sky-solo clan for a year till they give birth to a son named ben solo
Snoke is the apprentice that brought down Luke’s school. With the help of a very young Ben Solo.
Luke’s snaps, injures Snoke in a major way. Snoke sent Sith, he is dark Jedi.
And Luke hides because he realized Snokes action brought him to the precipice of the edge.
And this is why Snoke is deathly scared of Luke.
This can be possible. However, it was stated in the deleted scenes, that Snoke was old enough to have witnessed the entire clone wars. I dont know if deleted scenes are canon, but if they are imo its pretty obvious that he is Plagueis
They are Canon if they are included in the novelization. In this case, Snoke witnessing the rise of the empire is Canon. I like this theory but I just don’t see it. Snoke’s not really apprentice material. The information in the visual dictionary is also Canon and it is pretty clear from that that Ben Solo was the student who betrayed the rest.
Its pretty obvious that he is Plagueis. I mean if not than who? Some random alien? Plagueis would tie all 3 trilogies together, it will be a complete wasted opportunity if he isnt Plaguies. However im 99% sure that he is. I’ve read a leaked conception around a year before TFA, which was 85% on the spot about the actual movie, and that stated that Snoke is the master of Sidious.
It’s rumoured that Luke is on the search for the 1st Jedi temple in Episode VIII. Why does he suddenly need to find it? What secrets does it hold? Is there a connection between that and Snoke? Is that where Snoke is based? Perhaps some revelation around this binds all 3 trilogies together.
Maybe to better tie all three trilogies together, Snoke can make a cameo in Rogue One. Just like Vader knelt before the emperor in a hologram in TESB, we’ll see the emperor kneeling before a hologram Snoke in secret in Rogue One. It will turn out that The Clone Wars was part of the emperor’s scheme, but the galactic civil war was part of Snoke’s scheme.
I hope so. That’d be cool.
If Palpatine had several apprentices, why not Plagueis? There’s nothing to indicate that Darth Sidious was his first and/or only apprentice. Maybe Snoke was an apprentice of Plagueis that Sidious had to defeat to become Plagueis’ new apprentice, or maybe Plagueis thought him dead went looking for a new apprentice and that’s when he found Palpatine.
All it takes is a little imagination to make this work and it would achieve the same effect of linking all 3 trilogies together through Snoke, w/o making Palpatine come across as a complete idiot for trying to kill someone that had the power to cheat death. And that’s only assuming that he was telling Anakin the truth about Plagueis’ alleged power, which as a HUGE if.
That sfcene is canon because it was included in the novelization.
The visual dictionary states that Kylo is the apprentice who brought down the Jedi academy.
But I think Kylo had a moment of guilt and it was he that spared Rey and got her to Jakku.
Doesn’t it also say it happened 20 years ago. So Luke’s new Jedi order was undermined by a kid! Lame! I thought Han said Snoke made him think this way.
Since Disney is expected to lock down on leaks, here are some of my random predictions/thoughts for Episode 8 and Rogue 8 after seeing TFA a third time:
Felicity Jones’ character in Rogue One is Rey’s future mother. She’s a Rebel pilot assigned to lead the mission to steal the Death Star plans.
Felicity Jones will appear in a flashback vision in Episode 8 with young Rey.
Darth Vader will have a significant role in Rogue One… because Disney and Hasbro want to sell lots of new Vader toys.
The role that Tatiana Maslany and other actresses are auditioning for in Episode 8 is a character who will be revealed in the movie to be one of the six Knights of Ren we saw stand with Kylo.
Space politics: Thanks to using the Starkiller, the First Order leveled the playing field against the New Republic. The First Order’s fleet wasn’t that big in TFA — the Finalizer may have been their only Star Destroyer.
When Episode 8 starts, the member planets of the New Republic are trying to re-form the Senate on another planet. The Resistance fleet has been expanded greatly, as has the First Order’s fleet.
Benicio del Toro’s character is not a Sith, nor with the First Order. I have no guess what he could be, but I’m just guessing he’s a bad guy but not tied to either faction.
Here’s my fan idea of the plot of Episode 8:
del Toro’s character leads the company that wants to expand the Resistance fleet, and he and Leia support one another in this.
In a role-reversal of Empire Strikes Back, the Resistance locates the shipyard planet where new Star Destroyers are being built. They launch a full-on attack, as the First Order defends it but loses.
But it turns out that del Toro made a deal with the First Order, who sacrificed their shipyard planet. This enables them somehow to find the location where the new Galactic Senate will convene. The Knights of Ren are dispatched to assassinate all the Senators. However, Rey and others come to the rescue.
The surviving Senators give what Leia (and del Toro’s character) want: building up the Resistance fleet greatly to fight against the First Order. del Toro wins because he and his company will make a lot of money off of the coming war. (So del Toros’ character would be like an evil Lando.)
Rey’s arrival to help save the new Senate, however, enabled Kylo to find the whereabouts of Luke.
Hah! Much like I said above – second episode in the new trilogy, I will not be surprised to see del Toro is an old friend who ends up double-crossing the heroes.
I don’t know….. The timeline of rogue one is between epi 3 and 4. She would have to be quite old by the time she was to have Rey.
I don’t think Darth Vader needs to be in the movie much to sell toys, check out Phasma.
Would be cool if we see much more of the Knights of Ren, with at least one of them being female as you say. But I think that female role you mention is a love interest for Finn.
Maybe Benicio del Toro is some kind of mercenary.
Rey won’t be the daughter of Jones. I’d bet my life on that. It’s too heavily hinted that she’s part of the Skywalker legacy.
She is a Skywalker, but in order to be part of the Skywalker legacy, Rey first needs a mother. That mother will be Jones.
I think she will die a heroic death in R1
Luke likes older women too, I guess.
Would probably only be like 5 years older than Luke, right?
If rouge one happens around the time of new hope, Luke isn’t that young.
Well depends on if you are going by real ages of actress and how long before ANH this is really set.
Pfft… everyone knows he only likes women that are 5-10 minuets older or younger than him.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive.
Considering that Luke was still a farmboy when she was born, I find that unlikely.
Rey is 19, placing her birth almost a year after ROTJ, so if she is his daughter, he had 10 years to meet someone and start a family, so I don’t follow your farm boy comment. But I totally agree with you about Jones. I think there will be some connections in other areas, but the anthology films were preached as being standalone films that are apart from the main saga. To introduce such an important historic character in Rogue One would be going against this mindset. I think there will be a more simple explanation in Episode 8 or 9 to explain Rey’s lineage, and it won’t involve having to watch anything outside of the main saga to understand who her mother was. Obviously, I could be wrong, but it’s just the feeling I get.
Sorry, ROTJ was 30 years before TFA, Rey is 19 in TFA, So Rey was born about 11 years after ROTJ.
That was a complete mistake and thank you for catching it. I meant to type almost 10 years…must have had a mental lapse there. 🙂
But Rey was born like 10 years after ROTJ. There are about 30 years between VI and VII, and Rey is like 20 or younger.
The First Order does have a fairly large fleet. If you read the novel ‘Before the Awakening’ By Greg Rucka Poe has an encounter with it just before the events in the film.
I have no idea who Benicio del Toro’s character is, but I’d like him to be the leader of some neutral system between the Republic and the First Order (like a third-party power in the galaxy).
I’m pretty sure we will get spoilers about his character in the future though.
Very interesting speculations. I firmly expect some of them to prove correct.
“the Finalizer may have been their only Star Destroyer.”
.
This better not be the case – they can build planet-sized superweapons, but cheap out on ships? Also, minimal number of toys that can be sold from “we don’t have many ships”, so I’m calling “nope”.
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“The Resistance fleet has been expanded greatly, as has the First Order’s fleet.”
.
Which would make the destruction of the Repuiblic and its fleet in TFA even more pointless than it already was. Everyone defending that sequence to me has harped on about how it puts the resistance at a disadvantage, as the Republic no longer can support them with a fleet. If they just have rebuilt the thing even bigger and better, why bother with it in TFA? “Nope” again.
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“Darth Vader”
Yeah, well, I don’t think anyone would be surprised by that.
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The rest? Who knows? Although I fully expect del Toro to be an old friend who the heroes go to for safe haven, who ultimately double-crosses them.
Never mess with Del Toro! hahaha
That would be a perfect role for him
I’d like to see what those glowing prop lightsabers were like.
Strange how nobody notices the reference in the movie where Kylo says to Snoke “You are wise.” Could be coincidence. But this is almost too giving in my opinion.
Forgot a photo
Isn’t anybody going to discuss or even notice the amazing close up of what looks like
one of the Knights of Ren in the photo series
https://www.instagram.com/p/-A5feuvK-c/?taken-by=dan_mindel
isn’t that kinda what the helmeted Klingons looked like in the Abrams Trek movies?
Yes, actually now that I checked, you are right.
I love how those last two are far, far better compositions than anything that actually ended up in the film.
Kinda subjective, eh?
Mmmm…not really. Those two are strong compositions, with the second one having a particularly good sense of movement. The film? Name one memorable composition, I dares ya. Of the things TFA did right, photography was not one of them.