Two martial arts experts surprised Londoners with a spectacular lightsaber duel as ‘Jedi fever’ hit the UK ahead of the highly anticipated release of ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ on Thursday.
Shania West, a trained stunt fighter, and Anton Simpson-Tidy, a world champion martial arts athlete, were given Lightsabers to train with for a week before staging the duel on London’s Southbank to mark the nationwide film release of ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’, on the 14th December 2017.
Teenagers at a London skateboard park were treated to an unexpected and jaw-dropping performance of martial arts skills, tricks, flips and swordsmanship.
“From day one of our shoot here in the UK the feeling of excitement and love for Star Wars has been palpable; and if you grew up loving Star Wars, you grew up loving lightsabers” commented Writer & Director of ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’, Rian Johnson “The cast trained for months to perfect their lightsaber skills, so it’s really impressive to see what these two Jedi-in-training have put together in just a few days.”
On top of the impressive video above, Disney also commissioned Star Wars fan and photographer Matt Scutt to create a series of stunning light trail pictures using the famous Jedi weapon. The Instagram sensation, who has over 307,000 followers, and is famous for his long exposure photographs toured the UK this week to produce the remarkable set of images with Star Wars fans wielding a variety of different coloured ‘sabers.
Passers-by in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool witnessed the photoshoots, with Matt teaming up with Star Wars fans in each city to create images, which took over four hours each to complete. “I’ve been a fan of Star Wars since I was a kid,” adds Scutt. “So to be given the chance to capture lightsabers in action was a dream project”.
In ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’, the Skywalker saga continues as the heroes of the UK’s biggest film of all time, The Force Awakens, join the galactic legends in an epic adventure that unlocks age-old mysteries of the Force and shocking revelations of the past.
‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ is written and directed by Rian Johnson and produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Ram Bergman. J.J. Abrams, Tom Karnowski and Jason McGatlin are the executive producers.
‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ is released in UK cinemas on Thursday 14th December 2017.
