STAR WATCH

At the time of writing there’s still no trailer from The Last Jedi, but Entertainment Weekly tunnelled past the Disney forcefield to grab the world some intel from a galaxy far, far away ....

For starters, it looks like Luke skywalker isn’t that chuffed to have visitors on Ahch-To. “[Han solo]'s gone, and instead I’m with this grumpy guy on an island who doesn’t want me here," says Daisy Ridley (Rey). “The very first step in the writing of this was figuring out why he’s on that island," explains writer/director Rian Johnson. “we know that he’s not a coward. But we also know that he must know his friends are in danger. It had to be something where Luke skywalker believes he’s doing the right thing.”

The Resistance could clearly do with some skywalker assistance, seeing as starkiller Base blowing up the Republic government has left them in something of a tight spot. “They’re a small band that’s now cut off, on its own and hunted when the Republic is shattered," explains Johnson. “They’re very, very vulnerable.”

AwoL stormtrooper Finn, however, isn’t that keen on sticking around. “He just wants to get away and not be involved,” says actor John Boyega. His friendship with new character Rose Tico, a Resistance mechanic who thinks he’s kind of a big deal, may be enough to change his mind, however, and the duo will team up with Benicio del Toro’s morally flexible hacker DJ.

other tidbits in the magazine include the confirmation that we’ll meet Andy serkis’s supreme Leader snoke in the flesh this time, that he’s protected by red-suited praetorian Guards and that his role will be bigger – although it doesn’t sound like we’ll discover everything about his backstory. “we’ll learn exactly as much about snoke as we need to,” teases Johnson.

And after all that there’s not really enough time to talk about the Han solo movie – though new director Ron Howard has been tweeting a lot of backstage pictures.