Out in the UK this week is the long-awaited, new nice price edition of the lavish and informative STAR WARS: BLUEPRINTS hardcover book by J.W. Rinzler. In celebration of the must-have title, we're having a week-long tribute to the six film's classic production designs.
As well as creating the all new environs needed for the Prequels, Production Designer Gavin Bocquet also had the challenge of recreating several now iconic sets and technology from the Classic Trilogy, as EPISODEs II and III began to mesh their design aesthetics with IV to VI. One particular challenge here would be the exterior of the Lars Homestead, needing to re-built from scratch on location in Tunisia for filming in 2000. Most of the original sets from John Barry and his team were removed after filming, destroyed or left for the vagaries of time to turn to dust, whilst the actual salt flats location they were out on seemed elusive, but producer Rick McCallum and Dr. David West Reynolds, in their earlier mid to late nineties locations scouting expeditions of Tunisia, were thankfully able to find that original area where the first film's principal photography took place in March 1976, and the foundations for the new/old set's resurrection were quickly lain-the igloo shaped entrance, garage roof and surrounding "Christmas Tree" moisture vaporators making an eerie and evocative return to the shooting landscape, and generating nostalgic memories from veterans George Lucas and actor Anthony Daniels.
With few surviving blueprints of the original construction available, particularly for some of the interior scenes, Bocquet and his team spent hours studying production art, stills and the movies to create their own highly detailed construction references. The final results of their dedicated endeavours, as seen in EPISODE II's cinematic release in 2002, proved stunning.
Get hold of STAR WARS: BLUEPRINTS here: Star Wars - The Blueprints: Amazon.co.uk: J.W Rinzler: Books
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