The Ice Planet Hoth May Appear in ‘Star Wars: Episode VII,' Hints Roger Moore
Had James Bond visited the ice planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back, he might have saved Luke Skywalker a lot of trouble: Bond could have ditched the tauntaun for an Aston Martin, shot the wampa with his Walther PPK, and kept everyone happy and warm with ice-cold martinis. That scenario may have gone through Roger Moore’s head when he recently toured the set of Star Wars: Episode VII.
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Like all visitors to director J.J. Abrams’ set, Sir Roger was forbidden from sharing too much of what he saw. Nevertheless, the actor, who played 007 in movies like The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and A View to Kill (1985), dropped a hint on Graham Norton’s radio show.
“They were filming something with a lot of mountains and snow,” Moore told UK media personality Norton. “But I was signed to secrecy.”
For Star Wars fans, “snow and ice” can mean only one thing: bring on the tauntauns! Speculation that Episode VII would take a detour to Hoth began in March, when Abrams was rumored to be scouting locations in Iceland. Icelandic website Visir speculated that the crew would be shooting “plate shots” in Iceland, meaning landscape footage that could be projected into the background of scenes shot in the studio. Another Icelandic website, Ruv.is, reported a rumor that scenes were being filmed at Eyjafjallajökull glacier, which sits on top of a volcano. Still another source, comics and videogame writer Gordon Rennie, wrote on Facebook that he’d been chatting with a member of the second-unit team, who said the Iceland scenes would include Chewbacca and “old skool” Stormtroopers.
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Of course, Abrams could be taking the Rebel Alliance to an entirely new ice planet – but given how much he’s playing to Star Wars nostalgia, revisiting Hoth seems like a distinct possibility. The Hoth scenes in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back were filmed in Norway.
Star Wars: Episode VII will be released in theaters on December 18, 2015
Photo credit: Lucasfilm
