BEHIND THE SCENES: THE 'LITTLE PEOPLE' AT WORK!

Having sneakily captured the unawares Artoo Detoo in the mountain regions, those trade hungry scavengers, the Jawas, take the little droid back to their immense Sandcrawler vehicle. Originally, the scene was filmed on location in Tunisia at the end of March 1976. Allegedly, film damage discovered afterwards, and once the Star Wars film crew had left that country, ultimately necessitated the scene being reshot in the US, at Death Valley, California around Jan 1977 as part of other pickup shots and scene reshoots. 

Since there was no money or time available to find and reassemble the original Jawa Sandcrawler scaffold prop constructed by John Stears and his UK practical effects team (if indeed its sections still survived at the Elstree Studios backlot), newly shot scenes (which we understand were undertaken by Gary Kurtz and his own Second Unit) saw local children (including Tim Donaldson and Andrea Wickman-Miller) hired as Jawas carrying the droid to a similar flat area of the Death Valley US location, in which the Sandcrawler was then subsequently matted on by ILM.

The Jawa Sandcrawler scaffold prop in Tunisia.

Getting ready for night filming in Tunisia.

Colour footage as seen in early dailies footage.

A stencil link to where a matte painting was to have been added above and replacing the scaffold sections in the original Tunisia filming.

Local children play Jawas for the Death Valley reshoot- Jan 1977.

Matte painting of Jawa Sandcrawler for revised scene.

How the final scene looked in the film.