Star Wars the Phantom Menace as filmed. Where was Star Wars filmed?
One of the most famous and large-scale projects of “all times and peoples” - the fantastic saga "Star Wars" - began to be created by American director George Lucas back in the early 1970s. To implement his plans, it took enormous efforts from him, which ensured the triumph of the first film, released in May 1977. Moreover, according to the testimony of those who participated in the creation of this epic, what happened during the work could well become the plot for a separate fascinating film. So, where and how was Star Wars filmed?
A few words about George Lucas
Before we begin the story of how Star Wars was filmed, we should pay a little attention to the personality of the director.
Today George Lucas is one of the wealthiest representatives of his profession with a capital of 5 million dollars, and at the time when he came up with the idea for the project, he was not even 30 years old, and he had only two full-length films. In fairness, it must be said that he had already made films in the fantasy genre, but it was not a resounding success. The plot of this film, known as "THX 1138", is a story about a future world where humanity, forced to live underground, is ruled by computers. The film is certainly inferior in entertainment to Star Wars, but its heroes are still fighting for their right to remain human and make all decisions on their own.
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"Star Wars" ( Star Wars) - a cult epic fantasy saga, including 6 films, as well as animated series, cartoons, television films, books, comics, video games - all imbued with a single storyline and created in a single fantastic Star Wars Universe, conceived and realized by American director George Lucas in the early 1970s and later expanded.
Today, May 25th, marks the 38th anniversary of the release of the very first film in this truly iconic science fiction film series. Let's remember together how it all began.
The first film was released on May 25, 1977, called Star Wars. The film was a huge box office success, which actually saved 20th Century Fox from the then-threatening bankruptcy. When doubts about the profitability of the project disappeared, the first film received the subtitle “A New Hope”, and soon two sequels appeared - in 1980 and 1983.
Genre: action, science fiction, adventure, family, fantasy
Nobody expected this film to be a success. The studio executives were so convinced that the film would fail that they gave Lucas the film for free. commercial rights for all subsequent Star Wars series. The bosses clearly underestimated the potential of the film, and did not expect that it would be followed by two sequels, three prequel stories and many spin-offs - cartoons, computer games, toys, books and even clothes and food products. The film's budget of 11 million dollars seemed very small, but it has already brought the director half a billion, and continues to do so.
The plot of the film boils down to how strong-willed young man Luke Skywalker, after the death of his uncle and aunt, teams up with old Jedi knight Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi, two creaky robots, ship commander Han Solo (Ford) and a furry alien to save the princess from the villain.
Starring in the film: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, Phil Brown, Sheelagh Fraser, Jack Purvis, Alex McCrindle, Eddie Byrne, Drew Henley
Director: George Lucas
Screenwriter: George Lucas
Operator: Gilbert Taylor
Composer: John Williams
Artists: John Barry, Leslie Dilley, Norman Reynolds, Leon Eriksen
Producers: Gary Kurtz, George Lucas
Awards, nominations, festivals
1978 - Academy Award
Best Art Direction
Best Costume Design
Best Visual Effects
Best Editing
Best Music
Best Sound
BAFTA Award (1978):
Best Music (John Williams)
Best Sound (Sam Shaw)
As a standard for the battle scenes, Lucas took military chronicles from the 2nd World War...
George Lucas wanted to make a kind of modern myth, as opposed to the dark, pessimistic fantasy that characterized the cinema of the early 70s.
Some interesting facts:
1. There were people sitting in the funny comedian robots C3PO and R2D2, and in the big robot there was a specially found very thin comedian, and in the small robot there was a dwarf who controlled the robot. When filming ended, they often forgot to remove the dwarf from the robot. He couldn't get out on his own.
2. Since there was little time for filming, different episodes were filmed simultaneously in 3 pavilions at once, while Lucas himself moved between pavilions on a bicycle.
3. Benchmarking in cinema: as a standard for battle scenes, Lucas took military chronicles from the 2nd World War, and in some scenes he simply copied scenes of air battles: the movement of aircraft, changes in close-ups and long shots, etc. reproduced very accurately.
4. The breath of a man in scuba gear was used to voice the sinister Darth Vader. To voice the speech of the alien Chubaku, samples of lion, bear and tiger roars were used, which alternated, lining up in certain “phrases”.
5. Wooden sticks coated with a reflective compound were used as “light sabers.” “Swords” constantly broke during fights.
6. The Death Star space station was the size of a desk, and a miniature camera was carried along it on a cable. The camera was controlled by a homemade computer (there were no personal computers then).
7. In one scene, Luke is attacked by a “sandman.” After knocking Luke to the ground, he raises the stick high above his head. During editing, for greater expressiveness, this frame was “looped” and repeated several times: it looked like the sandman was belligerently shaking a stick.
8. The producers repeatedly tried to close the film. Because:
Who will watch a stupid fairy tale?
There are no famous actors in the film
The soundtrack is symphonic, but now everyone listens to disco
9. No one believed in the success of the film, and only one small company decided to release toys in the form of the film characters for the premiere of Star Wars.
After the premiere, there was a rush of demand for toys, and the capacities used for the production of toys were not enough. That's why the company ran out of stock by Christmas! Then the company began selling “certificates” for toys. As a Christmas present, the child received an empty box and a certificate on which it was written: “With this certificate you will receive toys in March.”
10. In the 2nd part of the film, the alien Yoda was played by a special doll, which was controlled by several people. All the scenery in the scenes with Yoda (including trees, etc.) was raised above the ground to the height of a man, and the puppeteers were hiding under the floor.
This created difficulties: Mark Hamill, who played Luke Stywalker, did not hear him in his dialogue with Yoda. Finally they decided to put an earphone in Mark’s ear. Now he could hear Yoda, but periodically, when he turned his head, the earpiece began to pick up the radio (the Rolling Stones were playing), and this was very distracting.
11. Scenes on the snowy planet were filmed in Iceland. We were very unlucky with the weather; it was 20 degrees below zero all the time. The moments when Luke wanders through the snowy desert were filmed through open door from the hotel lobby. At the same time, Mark Hammil was freezing outside, and the entire film crew was warming up in the hall.
12. During filming of a flight through an asteroid swarm, .... ordinary potatoes were used as asteroids. The flyby of each “asteroid” was filmed separately, against the background blue screen, and then it was all mounted together with the flying starships. No computer graphics there wasn't then...
13. To make the acting more believable and to create an atmosphere of “mystery,” George Lucas hid until the last moment from the entire film crew that the sinister Darth Vader was actually Luke Starwalker’s father. Lucas told Mark Hammil about this a minute before filming the decisive duel with Vader. And the actor who played Vader, even during the filming of the episode where he tells Luke: “I am your father!”, did not know about his “paternity” - in this scene he utters completely different words: “Your father was killed by Obiwan Kenobi.” Then this scene was dubbed “as it should”: after all, Vader’s face is hidden under an iron mask.
14. In order to keep the audience in suspense from the very first frames of the film, Lucas moved all the credits to the end of the film, thereby breaking Hollywood traditions. For the first time he was forgiven for it. But when he repeated this number in the 2nd part of the film, the Directors Guild ordered him to pay a fine of 250 thousand dollars.
15. When preparations began for the shooting of the 3rd part of the film, then for all equipment suppliers, in all papers the film was called “Blue Harvest”. They specially came up with the most non-brand name possible - because when suppliers saw the name “Star Wars”, they immediately doubled the price.
16. The monstrous gangster Jabba was controlled by many people - some with his hands, some with his mouth, some with his tongue, some with his eyes (which were radio-controlled). And Jabba's tail was driven by 2 dwarfs. When Princess Leia, about to strangle Jabba, walked behind him, she accidentally stepped on the dwarf. To prevent this from happening again, a special platform was made.
17. One of the most exciting episodes of the 3rd part is racing on flying motorcycles at breakneck speed through the forest. In fact, the flight through the forest was filmed with a hand-held movie camera, which the operator slowly carried along the route. Filming was carried out at a speed of 1 frame per second. Then when normal speed playback at 24 frames per second and the effect of a dizzying race appeared.
In 1997, 20 years after the release of the first film, the original trilogy was remastered with computer-generated special effects and re-released. In re-release, the films grossed $256.5 million, $124.2 million, and $88.7 million, respectively.
In 1999, the film “Star Wars” was released. Episode I: The Phantom Menace,” which marked the beginning of a new trilogy - the prehistory of the original. Next in 2002 - Star Wars. Episode II: Attack of the Clones and in 2005 - Star Wars. Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
According to George Lucas, the idea for the film was influenced by Joseph Campbell's research on comparative mythology(“Hero with a thousand faces", etc.).
The beginning of the history of “Star Wars” is considered to be 1976. It was then that the novelization book of the same name by A.D. Foster and George Lucas appeared, telling about the events of Episode IV: A New Hope. Producers at 20th Century Fox, fearing the film would fail at the box office, decided to release the book early to gauge its success. In 1977, at the Congress of the World Community science fiction George Lucas got special award"Hugo" for this novel.
At the end of 2012, a seventh film was announced. The release date is set for December 18, 2015. In March 2015, the eighth film was announced and the premiere date: May 26, 2017.
On the eve of the release of the next episode of the film saga " Star wars“I want to remember how the film was made back in the 70s. This review presents footage of how iconic characters and battles were created without the use of modern computer special effects.
Star Wars for George Lucas became the biggest gamble of his career. At first, film companies refused to take on the film, calling the script mediocre and uninteresting in the disco era. Finally, 20th Century Fox gave the go-ahead for filming, but with many reservations: only six months were allocated for the work, funding was very limited, but for the ambitious director this no longer mattered.
Scenes of the space desert planet Tatooine were filmed in Tunisia. Ships and other technical structures were built in miniature. When filming, George Lucas used a hitherto unknown technique: he did not move objects along the camera, but vice versa. The picture turned out quite successful and realistic.
Inside the most famous robots R2D2 And C3PO there were living people. And if everything was more or less clear with the golden piece of iron, then for the barrel-shaped R2D2 it was necessary to find someone smaller. Children were not suitable for this role, because the camouflage was heavy, but the dwarf was just right. However, it could not do without funny cases: sometimes during the lunch break they forgot to take the dwarf out of the suit, but he could not get out on his own.
The role of Shaggy Chubbucks really enjoyed it tall man 218 cm tall. Moreover, when the actor fell ill, no one else could repeat the same facial expressions, and the entire film crew had to wait for the thug to recover.
Millions of fans around the world, hundreds of fan clubs, costumes for masquerade parties - all this is the world of Star Wars. The recognition of the characters in this film is simply off the charts. After the release of the first episode, all the boys dreamed of becoming Jedi, and the girls dreamed of becoming Princess Leia
90 unique shots from film sets legendary film waiting for you below...
Hollywood, California. August 1977. An epochal event in the history of cinema. There is a crowd in the world-famous Chinese cinema - thousands of people are trying to get closer to the entrance to get at least a glimpse of two robots - the barrel-shaped R2D2 and the golden C3PO greet their enthusiastic fans on the carpet. Historical moment: The robots' feet are imprinted in the cement in front of the entrance to forever leave a memory of their appearance here.
All this looks like some kind of madness. Suddenly, a science fiction film becomes something much more than just entertainment - it is already a real sociological phenomenon. The appearance of the first Star Wars series was like the birth of a new religious movement.
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." Romantic and big story about the struggle between Good and Evil, about love, hatred, betrayal and heroism, captured the minds of millions. Now it’s difficult to say what exactly was so impressive - after all, such incredible popularity cannot be explained by innovative special effects alone, no matter how hard you try... Surprisingly, then, in the late seventies, when people had never even heard of the Star Wars phenomenon, success Few people believed the films of the young director George Lucas.
George was only 32 years old at the time of filming. His creative portfolio already included two full-length films - “Galaxy THX-1138” (1971) - also science fiction, but of a completely different kind, and “American Graffiti” (1973) - a youth comedy about teenagers from a Californian town. The second film was a commercial success, but what happened to the third was a complete surprise for everyone. The effect was like a bomb exploding. Now, more than thirty years later, it was very difficult to imagine what kind of psychosis arose throughout the world because of this film - people lined up at the cinema box office in the evening and sat at the window all night to get to the best seats. Today this seems like sheer madness.
“What was the secret of success? I think that this is a bright and kind film, with heroes and villains, and most importantly, it is truly interesting, it was able to entertain the viewer better than anything before it. I tried to recreate the spirit of adventure romance that was in the old pirate movies, but I took this spirit into the vastness of space, and the result was an unprecedented fusion of fantasy and adventure."
Adventure films in a huge number aired in the sixties, and Lucas watched a lot of them. Old westerns, the entire series about Flash Gordon and pictures about the 19th century with fencing - all this merged into “ Star Wars».
Luke Skywalker main character“Star Wars” is a direct “descendant” of Flash Gordon, the most popular comic book hero who first saw the light of day back in 1934. It was created by artist Alex Raymond. Flash was a brave young man who, thanks to an incredible coincidence of circumstances, ends up on other planets and experiences amazing adventures, fighting evil.
He was the epitome of the ideal adventure comic book hero, just as Luke became the embodiment of the adventurous spirit for any teenager with a dream of travel. For Lucas, Luke became something of an “alter ego”, a second “I”; the director projected onto this image his own ideas about the ideal hero of a science fiction film.
25-year-old Mark Hamill played his character perfectly.
Luke's mentor was to be a wise Jedi, the last of the order, named Obi-Wan Ben Kenobi.
He was played by the outstanding British actor Alec Guinness.
Together with space smuggler Han Solo and his six-foot-tall Wookiee friend Chewbacca, Luke and Obi-Wan rescue Princess Leia...
...performed by Carrie Fisher.
And the main villain, as planned by Lucas, was to be Darth Vader, breathing asthmatically through an ominous black mask. The sound of breathing was obtained using a breathing apparatus for scuba divers - this was the final touch to the portrait, simple, like all ingenious things, and it became a kind of “ business card"villain.
Lucas spent more than a month on casting, during which he changed some of his priorities - for example, he abandoned the Asian image of Leia (as he had originally planned), and made it not Han Solo himself (the director for a long time there was an idea to make him a green-skinned giant with gills), and his friend Chewbacca.
As a result, he began to look like a giant upright walking monkey. By the way, according to the script, he is two hundred years old!
“Actually, I based Chewbacca on my dog named Indiana. She looks exactly like a Wookiee, only a little smaller."
The script for the colossal saga was created by George in the mid-70s, and it seemed like a lifetime's work. The 200-page tome (Lucas worked on it for more than a year) included the entire events of the Star Wars universe (including the modern trilogy and a lot of other things), hundreds of detailed characters - with names, biographies, carefully written characters...
Lucas was inspired when writing the script adventure film Kurosawa entitled "Three Scoundrels in the Hidden Fortress" (1958). The famous term “Jedi” also comes from Japanese - this is a paraphrase of “jidai-geki” - the name historical stories about samurai. The plan included a lot of components - including historical events realities, such as the confrontation between Napoleon and the Senate and the transformation of a reformer into a tyrant, numerous myths and legends - the structure became so cumbersome that no one except the author himself could understand it before the film adaptation. From the very beginning, Lucas planned to create two trilogies, and to present the events “from the end” - to film the second half of the script immediately, and leave the first “for later” for intrigue.
Lucas later admitted that he himself did not believe that he could bring the colossal project to life - his creation was so large-scale. So at first he was going to make only one film, and based on the results of the distribution, evaluate whether it was worth making a second and third. So it could all end with “episode four”!
Having collected preliminary material - the script and sketches with images of the main characters, Lucas began promoting his project, namely, he began negotiations to launch production. To do this, it was necessary to conclude an agreement with a film studio and find the necessary financing. For six months, Lucas knocked on the doors of the heads of companies, and for a very long time suffered failures - both Paramount and Warner Brothers, after some deliberation, refused to work with George, citing the “unpopularity of the topic.” Still - magical romantic fairy tale about space princesses and mysterious knights to the music symphony orchestra– who would be interested in this in the disco era? In addition, the fantastic setting will probably require a lot of money, and there will be no famous actors in the film... A typical failed project!
No wonder - in the seventies, science fiction was synonymous with the horror genre, and in such films (mostly very weak ones) the theme of alien monsters was increasingly exaggerated, and not at all the spirit of adventure. In vain Lucas tried to convince the bosses of film studios that his film was completely original - they called him several times in a row and reported that the project was rejected by their superiors. The irony of fate is that one of the most successful films of all time was considered potentially unprofitable!
But in the end, luck smiled on Lucas - the film company XX Century Fox agreed to give the project the green light - and only after the desperate director signed an agreement with a clause waiving the fee paid in advance... Moreover, the film company set a condition... release of a book about the events of the fourth episode! Perhaps in order to “test the waters”, to determine audience choice. By that time, George was ready to do anything to bring his plans to life. A brilliant writer, he co-authored this novel with Alan Foster, and the book was a success, so much so that Lucas later even received the prestigious Hugo Award for it. And so, having knocked out eight million dollars in funding (more than five million would be needed in the process), in the summer of 1976, Lucas began work on the film.
Tunisia, North Africa. It was here that George Lucas, at the head of a team of 130 people from England and the USA, shot the first frames of his new film, creating the world of the desert planet Tatooine (named after... a city in Tunisia!), where the robots who, in the story, escaped from the Empire, ended up. Time was running out - due to the months lost on the release of the book and negotiations with other companies, Lucas had less than six months for the entire process, including editing and voice-over. Several tons of scenery were hastily brought to Africa by plane to create the surroundings dreamed up by the director.
Decorators worked for 2 months, building the desert city of Mos Eisley, where Luke and Obi-Wan met space smuggler Han Solo. The entire film crew was on a starvation diet - even the director himself and the main actors flew only in economy class and ate in the common dining room. Later, everyone recalled how enthusiastic the young director instilled in the team - no one had any doubts about success, so energetically did George pursue his cherished goal.
Among other decorations, robots arrived in Africa - 25 different models (there are 33 in total in the film), manufactured under the direction of famous master Carlo Rambaldi. Controlled by radio, on wheels or tracks, or even with a dwarf inside, these robots created the necessary surroundings. Filming in the desert was another challenge - the ubiquitous sand constantly jammed the mechanisms, so most of time, the robots were repaired.
This robot, which looked like a walking refrigerator, was portrayed by a dwarf. Sometimes they forgot to take him out of the case, but he could not get out.
Great job vehicles. The sand crawler of desert scavengers (played by a dozen dwarfs), who picked up robots in the desert, was created in the form of a small meter-long model, which was used for filming in motion, and in the unloading scene an expensive huge set with caterpillar tracks from a mining excavator was used.
For one of the scenes (a crawler after an attack by imperial soldiers), the set was “destroyed” by sawing the tracks with an autogen gun, adding holes in the casing and smoke from smoke bombs.
The hovering speeder on which Luke moved across the surface of Tatooine, during the filming of long shots, moved along the surface of the earth on wheels, which were then removed using composite shots.
In several scenes he was mounted on what appeared to be a huge carousel, with a speeder hanging at one end and crew members at the other to propel it.
After spending a total of three months in Tunisia, the film crew filmed all the material almost without incident. But there were still some troubles: in the midst of filming, a sandstorm broke out, which literally scattered part of Mos Eisley across the desert, delaying the process of working on the film for a week. According to local residents, such storms are not uncommon here...
When the crew returned to England, the sets were already ready at Elstree Studios for filming the subsequent scenes, and the most impressive was, without a doubt, Han Solo's ship, the Millennium Falcon, almost fifty meters long. It was so big that it was built and filmed in the company's largest studio, a vast hangar outside the city. The decoration weighed forty tons.
Separately, and in a completely different studio, they made the Falcon’s cabin, mounted on a spring-loaded platform. At certain points during filming, assistants shook the booth with their hands, creating the illusion of vibration.
To save money, filming was carried out simultaneously in three pavilions, with Lucas moving between them on a bicycle. Working 12 hours a day, seven days a week, the team managed to complete the filming of the footage with the actors on set in just eight weeks. Most of the time was spent working on special effects, of which there were a colossal amount in the film.
A total of 365 special effects were used in the film - an absolute record at that time. Spaceships, various mechanisms, the famous laser swords, even the opening credits - all this was implemented in the most impressive and innovative way. Until now, viewers have never seen such special effects in films. They were created in California, at the studio Lucas founded specifically for Star Wars (the tiny company later grew into a giant called Industrial Light and Magic) and combined with footage shot in England.
Except for Stanley Kubrick's A Space Odyssey, in which the effects were merely a pale addition to the artistic design, "A New Hope" was the first film with this level of entertainment. Comparable to Star Wars, Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released at the same time, and was no longer perceived as revolutionary.
For filming spaceships moving in space, Lucas used revolutionary technology - instead of trying to move ships relative to the camera, as had been done until now, he... moved the camera relative to stationary ships! The result was impressive: the most natural and smooth movement created a complete illusion.
The ship model was photographed using a camera mounted on a special mechanism controlled by a computer. The camera position for each frame was saved in memory, and the creators were able to add any background at the editing stage in full accordance with the shooting angle. The clever use of lighting and moving shadows allowed us to achieve a simply amazing effect. There was no trace of computer graphics in the seventies!
The creation of thirty-three moving robots was also a technological achievement. And chief among them, of course, were the famous friends R2D2 and C3PO.
“From the very beginning, I decided to develop the narrative around two robots, make them the core of the whole story, and add a comic touch. I was fully aware that this would be difficult to do. But I didn’t suspect that it was so... There were many difficulties - they constantly broke down, did absolutely not what was needed in the frame, and generally wasted our time terribly. We dealt with a colossal amount of problems - sometimes it seemed to me that I couldn’t stand it. But it was still a hell of a lot of fun!”
The result was worth the effort - a funny pair of robots became an integral part of the whole story, and the characters played a vital and sometimes decisive role in the fate of the main characters.
When creating C3PO, the artist was inspired by the image of a robot from Fritz Lang's old dystopian film Metropolis (1927). For this role, the thin actor Anthony Daniels was selected, who was dressed in a golden metallic suit. In total, half a dozen design options were created (even with ears and antennas).
When walking, C3PO loudly crunched the joints of his suit, and, by the way, he could not see anything at all in the helmet, moving around film set almost blindly, and constantly crashing into the scenery, which required many takes to create all the scenes with him.
As for R2D2, it was invented by Lucas himself. The robot's mechanisms constantly malfunctioned, so it was constantly repaired and debugged.
Combined shooting was also revolutionary - for example, the authors used backgrounds, hand-painted on glass, which were combined with real filming, resulting in a surprisingly realistic illusion of space.
In the scene where Obi-Wan turns off the power supply to the Death Star, according to Lucas' sketch, it was necessary to create a shaft of enormous depth. There was no question of building a set tens of meters high for the sake of a single plan.
Then they made the decoration of the central part, along with the walls of the mine surrounding it...
... and thousands of miles from England, in the USA, they hand-painted a backdrop on glass in the form of a deep shaft going down to dizzying depths, and then shot it on film.
Combination real shooting with a painted backdrop gave amazing results realistic effect. This technology was successfully used in many other scenes, including the following episodes.
The famous laser swords are another impeccably done special effect. During the filming, we used wooden sticks coated with a reflective compound, the same as on road signs.
Then a hand-drawn glow and flashes when the “blades” collided were superimposed on the real frames (by the way, the laser beams were also drawn manually, using a ruler), and sound effects completed the illusion.
The climax of the film - when the rebels use fighters to attack the Imperial Death Star - was the most expensive and technically advanced part of the film. The spectacle and impeccable staging made this attack one of the most impressive scenes in world cinema. But behind the inspirational shots were months of hard work by hundreds of professionals - the entire final battle was essentially one big special effect.
When staging battles between fighters, Lucas was inspired by Hollywood films about World War II with air battles between aircraft, as well as newsreels of those events - the turns of fighters and their maneuvers were copied from real maneuvers of combat aircraft.
Models of spaceships were filmed against the background blue screen computer controlled camera. These shots were then combined with a moving background shot in another studio using miniature cameras that moved over a huge mock-up of the surface of the Death Star.
All of the wide shots of the Death Star in the film are hand-drawn on huge surfaces. But when filming a fighter attack, drawings alone were not enough. Several “miniatures” (many meters in size) were built, depicting the surface of the Death Star and the corridor in which the fighters rushed.
These were huge models (up to ten meters in length), containing thousands small parts. It took a lot of work to make them, and subsequently to restore them after moving cameras repeatedly crashed into them during filming, hundreds of squibs were fired on their surface, depicting explosions...
The filmmakers recall that this scene took greatest number time and effort - quite expected, given that for Lucas it was the finale that was especially important, and he spared no expense to implement his plans properly. The matter was complicated by the fact that many special effects were being done for the first time in the history of cinema, the creators were forced to act by trial and error, and this led to impressive expenses. The special effects for the first Star Wars cost almost four million dollars, which by the standards of the seventies was an unprecedented amount.
Yes, Star Wars was an incredibly ambitious and innovative project. It is all the more surprising that on the day of the premiere the film was released in only thirty cinemas across America - the producers simply did not have the funds for more, and besides, no one believed in the success of “Wars”. After the very first showings of the magical spectacle, the glory of “ incredible movie"spread like wildfire, after which the film studio hastily released hundreds of copies sent to all cinemas in the country. The next month made "Wars" a legend, Lucas a multimillionaire, and the whole story a cult.
Since then, it has been one of the greatest successes of cinema, and not only at the box office (by the way, the success of “Wars” saved XX Century Fox from bankruptcy). Seven Oscars (and a quarter of a hundred other awards) - for scenery, costumes, special effects, editing, sound, character voices and the brilliant soundtrack of John Williams - completed the picture of colossal triumph. The fate of the saga was decided - Lucas received every opportunity to bring his super-script to life in full. Which he did - to the sincere joy of Star Wars fans.
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IMDb Mos Eisley, Tatooine
Tunisia is the most famous Star Wars filming location. This is where George Lucas filmed the beginning of A New Hope - the desert planet Tatooine, where the main character of the classic trilogy, Luke Skywalker, was born. Luke's house is located in the Sidi Driss Hotel (Matmata town), Mos Espa was filmed nearby, where Qui-Gon Jinn met Anakin (Episode I: The Phantom Menace), the city and spaceport of Mos Eisley and its cantina, in which Han Solo shot first.
Shutterstock Djerba Island, Tunisia
But Tatooine was not only filmed in Tunisia. For some of the scenes with the landscapes of this planet, Lucas chose national park"Death Valley", located in California and Nevada between the Mojave Desert and the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Rebel base on Yavin IV - Guatemala
IMDb Massasi Outpost on Yavin IV
Another location from A New Hope. Having escaped from the Death Star, Luke and his comrades went to the rebels on Yavin IV in order to deliver the blueprints for the Empire's formidable weapon. To film the base, Lucas used the ruins of Tikal - ancient city Mayan Indians, part of the Guatemala National Park. It is on the tops of the thousand-year-old pyramids that the rebel sentries stand. The same location appeared in one of the trailers for The Force Awakens.
Shutterstock Tikal National Park, Guatemala
Another rebel base - on the planet Hoth from the fifth episode of The Empire Strikes Back - was filmed in Norway near the village of Finse. There Lucas found the Hardarger Jokulen glacier for landscapes of a snowy planet.
Planet Endor - California
IMDb Planet Endor - Home of the Ewoks
Much of the ground-based scenes in the final episode of the classic trilogy, Return of the Jedi, take place on the moon of the gas giant Endor, where the funny Ewok creatures, similar to Gummi Bears, live.
Shutterstock Redwood National Park, California
The forests of this planet were filmed in national park"Redwood", located in California (USA). And Lucas came up with the name for the Ewoks by analogy with the local tribe of Miwok Indians.
Planet Naboo - UK
IMDb Planet Naboo - Homeworld of Jar Jar Binks and Princess Amidala
The home world of Jar Jar Binks, Queen Amidala, and Chancellor Palpatine finds itself in the thick of the action in the first episode of the saga, The Phantom Menace. Landscapes of this planet were filmed near London, in the Whippendell Woods forest. There, not far from Watford, is the Leavesden Studios, the location where the Harry Potter films (and, of course, Star Wars) were filmed.
Shutterstock Whippendell Woods near Watford
But in order to film the royal palace of Theed, the seat of the head of the human population of Naboo, Lucas and his team had to go to Seville (Spain), where the Plaza de Espana building built for the Iberian-American Exhibition of 1929 is located. It is among its colonnade that Padmé and the grown-up Anakin from the second episode of “Attack of the Clones” walk.
Planet Kashyyyk - Guilin, China
IMDb Kashyyyk - Chewbacca's Homeworld
The home world of Chewbacca and other representatives of the Wookiee race is shown very little in the films of the saga - only a few scenes in the third episode of "Revenge of the Sith". True, Lucas intended to film Return of the Jedi on Kashyyyk, but he liked the Ewoks more.
Shutterstock Guilin, China
But for the sake of these few shots, the Star Wars film crew had to go to Guilin, China and visit Thailand - it’s a little hot there for fur-covered Wookiees, but incredibly beautiful.
Planet Mustafar - Italy
IMDb The Fire World of Mustafar
The fiery world of Mustafar, where one of the most tragic battles of the saga took place between Obi-Wan Kenobi and the already converted dark side Forced by his apprentice Anakin Skywalker, who took the name Darth Vader.
Shutterstock Volcano Etna, Italy
It is clear that the Jedi and the Sith fought not among real lava flows, but in a pavilion. And the location for Mustafar’s landscapes was Mount Etna on the Italian island of Sicily.
Planet Jakku - UAE
IMDb Planet Jakku
The seventh episode of Star Wars also begins on a desert planet - only this is not Tatooine, but Jakku. According to the canon of the saga, a year after the Battle of Endor, this planet became the site of a new battle between the rebels and the empire’s troops (the addition to the game “Star Wars: Battlefront” is dedicated to it), during which a Star Destroyer fell to the surface.
Shutterstock Desert near Abu Dhabi, UAE
This destroyer was rummaged through by Daisy Ridley's character Rey in the trailers for The Force Awakens. And the sandy landscapes of Jaku were filmed in a real desert near Abu Dhabi.
Rebel base from The Force Awakens - UK
IMDb Rebel Base from The Force Awakens
The trailers and videos for the seventh episode showed a new rebel base. Where it is located in the film is still unknown, but on our planet you can see it if you get to the Royal Air Force base in Berkshire, England (RAF Greenham Common military base).
Shutterstock Abandoned military base in English Berkshire (RAF Greenham Common military base)
Sometime during " cold war“This base was actively used, but now it has turned out to be abandoned and only thanks to the filmmakers it was not lost on the map of England.
Island from The Force Awakens - Ireland
IMDb Unknown Location from The Force Awakens
The plot of “The Force Awakens” will apparently remain unknown to the general public until the film’s premiere on December 17. And it is still unknown what role this island plays in the saga.
Shutterstock Ruins of a 7th century monastery on the island of Skellig Michael, 12 km off the southwest coast of Ireland
And it was filmed on the real island of Skellig Michael (Skellig Michael or Michael's Rock), located 12 km from the southwestern coast of Ireland. On the island there are also the ruins of a monastery, which dates back to the 7th century.
