SWINDON cinema managers are expecting new Star Wars film to be the smash Christmas hit.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will be released on Thursday and it comes after sixth formers from the Commonweal School were given the chance to quiz some of the cast of the original film – A New Hope.

The film studies students were given a sneak preview of a new documentary, Elstree 1976 which charts the lives of ten extras who starred in the original film and whose lives have been lived in the shadow of the Star Wars films.

After a special screening of the film at the school for around 100 students, staff and Swindon film-lovers, student Ellis Evason led a Q&A session with the film’s director John Spira, producer Hank Star and original Stormtrooper Laurie Goode.

Josie Williams, community arts development officer at the Commonweal School, organised the screening and Q&A.

She said: “As part of their course our students have to analyse films and this is a real life project.

“If we can give our students a real life project, rather than a hypothetical one, they put a lot more energy and effort into it.”

Hank Starrs, Elstree 1976’s producer, praised the Commonweal students.

He said: “Somebody asked: if you could go back and do it all again would you do it all differently?

“That’s a really hard question to answer and it’s a really good question, because in some ways you would do everything differently - but you would end up with a different film.”

Elstree 1976, which premiered last year, follows the stories of ten actors who were in the first Star Wars film which was shot in 1976.

Producer Hank said: “It’s thrown a shadow across their lives. A lot of them go around the world to conventions, meeting fans and making a living out of it. But they were only in the film for 30 seconds.”

The London-based filmmaker shot reconstructions of original scenes from the Star Wars films at the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon.

Hank said: “I knew that the Wyvern Theatre basement, rooftop and infrastructure hasn’t really changed much since the seventies. I thought that it would be a really cool place to shoot the reconstructions.”

Hank, who toured as a musician for 20 years before becoming a producer, is looking forward to the release of Rogue One.

The film is a prequel to the original Star Wars films. It follows actress Felicity Jones as she leads a team of rebel soldiers to steal the designs of enemy spaceship the Death Star.

Swindon cinemas have seen steady sales of tickets although they say sales have not trumped last year’s Star Wars: Episode XIII.

But Neil Savage at Cineworld’s Regent Circus cinema said: “It’s looking to be the number one hit of the Christmas period.”