How Queen told Darth Vader: Get off my land
STAR WARS producers may be able to count senior Royals among their biggest fans – but when then tried to film on the Queen’s land, they found out the hard way that the Force was not with them.
Their request to film scenes for the blockbuster franchise in the grounds of Windsor Great Park was rejected, it was revealed yesterday.
Last year, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Princes William and Harry visited the set of the Star Wars film Rogue One at nearby Pinewood, where they had a lightsaber fight and filmed scenes for the movie as stormtroopers.
But when location scouts asked to film near Windsor Castle ‘a few years ago,’ they were turned down.
Nick Day, from the Crown Estate, told the BBC: ‘Star Wars was just such a huge thing that the risk for the park was just too great. The location they were interested in wasn’t suitable for large numbers of people. Star Wars is a huge machine, and there’s also massive outside interest. It wasn’t right for here.’
The park has been used for location filming for The Legend of Tarzan, Bridget Jones’s Baby and Goodbye Christopher Robin, where a forest stood in for Hundred Acre Wood, Winnie The Pooh’s home. But Mr Day said around eight out of ten filming requests were refused.
Perhaps the Star Wars producers should have sent Darth Vader to make him change his mind…