THOUSANDS of fans have been flocking to Swindon’s cinemas to see the Star Wars film The Last Jedi.

Many cinema-goers eager to be the first to watch the latest addition to the billion-dollar franchise attended midnight premieres across the town on Wednesday.

More than 700 people went to the Empire cinema at the Greenbridge retail park to see the film in eye-popping IMAX 3D.

Luke Kaye of Skywalker’s costumiers was one of them, and he brought models of characters and props from the film with him, including Kylo Ren, Boba Fett and several stormtroopers.

Luke said: “The buzz was amazing, getting 720 people in one place at midnight is crazy.

“Lots of them dressed up in great costumes and took selfies with my characters.”

The excitement built to a fever pitch before the film began.

Afterwards, Luke was surprisingly ambivalent about it, though he admitted that he enjoyed the film more when his namesake was on-screen.

Luke said: “Luke stole the show, he was by far the best part of the film.

“The characters are great, there are some fantastic and unusual new creatures, and the ending has a few surprises, but the story was absolutely all over the place.

“I’ll still see it again just to see if it grows on me and I’ll always look forward to the next one, but I was disappointed.

“I’ve seen people saying it’s brilliant and some people saying it’s awful - it seems like it’s a bit of a Marmite film, you either love it or you hate it, there’s no middle ground.

“It’ll still make millions and everyone will go see it anyway.”

Dozens of screenings are being held today and over the weekend to accommodate the expected huge demand for the blockbuster.

Natalie, one of the managers of Cineworld Regent Circus, said: “We had more than 500 people in for our midnight screening, daytime showings have been doing well and some of the evening showings have sold out.

“We expect this to continue over the next week.

“Overall, it’s had a very positive reaction, people have come out saying they loved it, one person went straight back into another screening to see it again.

“A lot of fans will probably see it again and again because it’s a film they’ve been waiting for.”

Th eighth entry into the main Star Wars series had had fans on tenterhooks.

Daisy Ridley’s character Rey will be trained in the ways of the Force by Luke Skywalker, played by series veteran Mark Hamill, while Adam Driver’s moody Sith Kylo Ren will continue his path to the Dark Side.

It’s also safe to assume that there will be at least one lightsaber fight and a space battle, but few other plot details are known.