THE 'PHANTOM' AT TWENTY: KSOURS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT

The intriguing granary stores housing of Medenine would be transformed into the memorable slave quarter dwellings of Mos Espa on Tatooine, home to the just about surviving mother and son Skywalker family. The set decorators for EPISODE I clearly did an incredible job, as seen in these great Tunisian location images from Summer 1997, with great continuity to the original work established for A New Hope twenty-one years earlier..

Rick McCallum and George Lucas with the remote controlled Artoo, prior to filming the sandstorm scene at the location.

Though suited perfectly for EPISODE I, the Ksours had originally been planned to be used back in 1976 as a location for Mos Eisley, scouted by producer Gary Kurtz and production designer John Barrr, who provided the sketch below for the scene, ultimately cut from the production time for schedule and budget reasons, where Luke and his party landspeeder through an area of town that would be home to a Jawa community.

John Barry production sketch.