First it was Threepio, now it's Artoo who is soon captured and in the grubby hands of those pesky little collecting critters that are the Jawas, attaching a restraining bolt to it and then sucking it up into the main hold of its massive Sandcrawler vessel. A classic moment from the original Star Wars.
Filming at a small canyon location in Tunisia called Sidi Bouhlel, located in Tozeur, on Tuesday March 30th, 1976, the key sunset scenes involving the Jawas having neutralized Artoo, and their carrying him to their Sandcrawler, would be shot (when the rushes are viewed in London later on in filming, however, the wide establishing footage of the Sandcrawler is discovered to be scratched and the film stock poor - it is decided that this will have to be mostly re-shot States-side in 1977, once extra funds are secured from Fox).
For the overall Jawa location filming sequences/going into the
Sandcrawler scaffold prop for the night
shoot, the small in height cast included Kenny Baker's longtime friend/showbusiness partner Jack Purvis (listed on one call sheet as 'Head Jawa'), a French/Tunisian
midget (named Mahmoud or Mahjoub?) who had been helping the film crew in the location filming, between three and seven local Tunisian children (according to call sheets), the young son of Giles Instone,
manager of the British lorry drivers transporting sets
and equipment to Tunisia, and Gary Kurtz’s two
daughters Melissa and Tiffany.
For the scene where Artoo is sucked up the tube into the Sandcrawler, the effect was simply achieved by dropping the empty prop down from the tube and then reversing it in post production.
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| The Jawas and their new capture prize. |
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| The Jawas at work! |
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| The originally shot footage of Artoo getting his restraining bolt. |
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| The re-filmed restraining bolt sequence at ILM later in post production. ILM staffer/production assistant Penny McCarthy is on her knees in the Jawa robes. |
