Star Wars the Phantom Menace as filmed. Special effects in "Star Wars" as it happened (29 photos)

We all know that one of the most iconic and grandiose films is the Star Wars saga. So why was it so exciting and interesting? First of all, the screens were attracted by the visual effects that were amazing for that time and the proximity to outer space. Let's reveal the secret behind the classic trilogy and find out how the legendary trilogy was created literally from simple cardboard and drawings.

Like any masterpiece, Star Wars began with an idea.

Great storyteller new era cinema George Lucas conceived the epic when he was not yet 30 years old. In the mid-1970s, a preliminary script was ready, which, however, was almost completely rewritten more than once. What do you think, for example, of one of Lucas' ideas to make Luke Skywalker a 60-year-old general, and Han Solo an alien with green scales and gills?

The written story included the plot of all six episodes known today. There is a version that George Lucas decided to shoot the episodes from the middle because at that time there were supposedly not enough skills of visual effects specialists for the first three episodes. This is not so, the director could well have realized his idea starting from the very first episodes. He initially decided to take on the film adaptation of the fourth episode. Firstly, it was done to intrigue the audience. Secondly, George Lucas didn’t even know if he would be able to film more than one episode of Star Wars, so he took on the most “driving” moment of the script.

It only got worse from there. For a long time, no studio wanted to take on the film adaptation of a fairy tale with, to put it mildly, strange plot. The influence of the hippie movement was still felt in the yard, venerable directors were making serious films about the Vietnam War, and mediocrities were making trash films about evil aliens from outer space. The work of George Lucas was immediately ranked among the latter, but the budget was in this case a considerable amount was required - $8 million. Fortunately, a producer was found who believed in the genius of the young director and allocated the necessary amount.

And still, only a few believed in the success of Star Wars. Lucas himself sometimes doubted that anything worthwhile would come of his idea. Later, the actors recalled filming as the most ridiculous episode in their lives. A tall guy in a monkey suit, dwarfs, simple pretentious dialogues... The film was perceived as a children's fairy tale or trash, but not an adventure fantasy that aspires to cult status.

“The scene in the bar resembled the delirium of a stoned person: some frogs, pigs, a cricket - a nightmare!” - the performers of the main roles said with a smile. Apparently, the same point of view was shared by Hollywood bosses, who for some reason considered one of the main questions of the film whether a Wookie should wear underpants. At some point, they wanted to cancel Star Wars altogether, then they decided to throw out all the special effects from the film and turn it into a television series. Only George Lucas' persistence and stubbornness saved the film.

The lion's share of filming took place in the Tunisian desert. In the same country, they found a suitable name for the planet on which the first third of the film takes place. The name of the city Tataouine quietly transformed into Tatooine. Here, in North Africa, suitable scenery was found: the house of Luke Skywalker's guardians was not built specifically for the film, it was an ordinary hut in one of the villages of Tunisia. Suitable interiors were found at a local hotel.

But the city of Mos Eisley, from whose spaceport Luke finally set off on his space journey on the Millennium Falcon, had to be built from scratch. Tons of scenery had to be transported from Hollywood by plane. It took about two months to build a settlement from the received material that would fit perfectly into the desert surroundings.

Han Solo's spaceship was created in life size in one of the largest film pavilions in England. The length of the colossus reached 50 meters, and the weight was several tens of tons. A giant model of the Millennium Falcon appears occasionally in the frame, but mostly film crew its “innards” came in handy, because the main characters spend a lot of time in the ship. True, the cabin still had to be made separately.

George Lucas wanted to literally put the viewer in the place of the characters. The Millennium Falcon is flying at the speed of light, the ship is being fired upon, and is being tossed from side to side. All this should be accompanied by shaking inside. It is difficult to make a 40-ton model vibrate, so it was decided to build a small cabin and place it on a spring platform. In scripted scenes, she was shaken manually.

Another giant model had to be made to recreate the crawler described in the script, in which the Jawas drove around Tatooine in search of robots. For some episodes, a huge metal “box” was built with tracks from a mining excavator. To shoot general scenes, a compact crawler model was used.

As in most science fiction films of the pre-computer era, in “ Star Wars“There were a lot of “toys.” All the spaceships we see in the film (from the Millennium Falcon to fighter jets) were made in the form of miniature plastic or even cardboard models. The Death Star was actually drawn, and to film the final large-scale attack scene, the film crew built a 15x15 meter model. Each of the hundreds of turrets and guns that bristled with the Death Star was carefully reproduced on it. The tunnel through which toy rebel fighters flew became the dominant feature of the layout.

Who knows whether “Star Wars” would have received cult status if the film had only space shootouts, without all that “zoo” that nevertheless settled in the film. Hundreds of dolls and masks, a huge amount of makeup and, of course, a park of dozens of robots. All this fit organically into the new universe and even now looks good.

A variety of robots have been invented

Today it is difficult to imagine Star Wars without the robots C-3PO and R2-D2. It was too expensive to make real mechanisms, so George Lucas agreed to have actors play the astromech droid and robot secretary. Anthony Daniels fit into C-3PO's plastic "armor". According to him, the plates were so fragile that they broke on the first day, injuring the actor’s leg.

Anthony Daniels was completely blind in his suit

Inside R2-D2 sat dwarf Kenny Baker, who played the nimble robot on wheels in all six films in the franchise. The actor recalls that he could not get out of the metallic depths of R2-D2 on his own and sometimes he had to spend several hours inside because people simply forgot about him. In total, more than 30 robots are present in the film in one form or another, most of which were controlled remotely.

Kenny Baker and Anthony Daniels had a tense relationship on set

Sometimes the assistants had to roll R2-D2

The true face of Chewbacca

But it was Chewbacca who had the hardest time, that is, excuse me, Peter Mayhew, who played the Wookiee. Before coming to cinema, the man worked as an orderly in a hospital, but thanks to his height of 221 centimeters, he made his way to the big screen. Every day while filming Star Wars, he had to put on a wool suit, put on the “head” and put on the “feet” of a Kashyyyk native. In Tunisia, the actor was plagued by unbearable heat, and the pavilions were sometimes hampered by openings that were too low for him.

George Lucas said after filming that in many ways he borrowed the image of Chewbacca from his dog Indiana. As for the name, they say that it is a derivative of the Russian word for “dog” - the young director really liked it.

During filming, the Wookiee did not utter a word or growl, he only opened his mouth, as required by the script. Later, sound engineers had to experiment with hundreds of different sounds to find the right ones for Chewbacca's speech. For example, when you hear an angry and indignant Wookiee, these are mainly the sounds that a bear makes, but a satisfied Chewie gets a tiger “purr”. The famous hoarse breathing of Darth Vader was achieved thanks to a scuba mask, R2-D2 “talks” with a mixture of various synthesizer beeps and even infant muttering, and the sound of the fighters had to be combined from the roar of an elephant and the sound of a car rushing along a wet highway.

Layout of the Death Star site

The camera floats over the model, filming the final battle

And yet, first of all, Star Wars is remembered for its amazing special effects. When I first saw the fourth episode in the late 1980s and left the cinema with my jaw dropped in surprise, I could not believe that this could have been filmed more than ten years ago. According to George Lucas, when he saw the first versions of the editing of his film, he gave up. The film turned out to be so weak and miserable that even the director could not believe in the bright future of the film. However, the impression changed dramatically when special effects were added to Star Wars.

And here is the famous tunnel - one of the main features of the film

For all the beauty, the Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) studio, which Lucas created specifically for his space epic, had to take the rap. In total, the film included almost four hundred special effects - an incredible figure for that time. The creation of flying ships, shots from blasters, and glowing swords took a third of the film's budget and most of the man-hours spent on the production of the film.

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. A 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, the 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 all. 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 movie. best places. Today this seems like sheer madness.

“What was the secret of success? I think it's that it's light and good movie, 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 in Star Wars.

Luke Skywalker, main character"Star Wars" is a direct "descendant" of Flash Gordon, the most popular hero comics that first saw the light 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 while 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 an 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 - it was finishing touch to a portrait, simple, like everything ingenious, and it became a unique “ 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 rental results, 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, a fantastic setting will probably require a lot of money, and famous actors not expected 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) 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 to “test the waters” and determine audience sympathies. 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, such that Lucas later even received prestigious award"Hugo". 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 invented 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 the time the robots were being 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 one-meter 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 still there were 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 Millennium Falcon ship, 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" Space Odyssey"Stanley Kubrick, in which effects were just a pale addition to 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.

To film spaceships moving through space, Lucas used a revolutionary technology - instead of trying to move the ships relative to the camera, as had been done until now, he... moved the camera relative to the 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 stored 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. No computer graphics there was no trace of it 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 number 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 chosen, 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 practically 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.

Combining real footage with a painted backdrop gave a surprisingly 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 Hollywood films about the Second World War 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 a blue screen with a 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 general plans The Death Stars in the film are hand-painted 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 of 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 creators of the film recall that this scene took the most time and effort - quite expected, given that for Lucas it was the ending that was especially important, and he spared no expense to realize his plan 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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Star Wars: The Force Awakens, released in December 2015, became the biggest film event of the year, grossing more than $2 billion. Now viewers are looking forward to the next, eighth episode of the saga, which will be released in December 2016. In anticipation of the new film, let's take a look at the set of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and find out how the most striking scenes of the film were filmed.

The appearance of Kylo Ren
Kylo Ren, aka Ben Solo, is the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa. main villain the seventh part of "Star Wars", trained as a Jedi, switched to dark side Strength and eventually killing his own father. He adores his grandfather Darth Vader and wants to be like him - this is probably why he also constantly wears a mask. By the way, creating this mask was a non-trivial task for the prop masters. They were tasked with making it so that children could easily remember it. The specialists coped with this task: the mask, shining with silver, certainly catches the eye. In this scene, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) arrives on the desert planet Jaffa to obtain a map containing the coordinates of Luke Skywalker. As we can see, filming is taking place in a pavilion, and everything around is covered with green sheets. The desert landscape of Jaffa will be added later on the computer.

Return of R2D2
In The Force Awakens, the small but nimble robot R2D2, adored by all Star Wars fans without exception, returned to us. Among the millions of admirers, by the way, is JJ Abrams, screenwriter and director of the seventh part of the saga. He is so in love with R2D2 that, as the director of Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, he managed to put R2D2 in both films! True, the robot from Star Wars appears in each for only a few seconds. In this unusual way, Abrams paid tribute to his childhood favorite “Star Wars.” Needless to say, Abrams had already found a place for his favorite character in the script for The Force Awakens and enjoyed working with the robot on set.

Instructions for BB 8
Since JJ Abrams had previously decided to bring back the famous robot couple R2D2 and C3PO in The Force Awakens, it only made sense to add another, more modern comrade who could capture the imagination of a new generation for whom old robots are a thing of the past. And the new hero, BB 8, succeeded! It has a charming design that is both traditional and modern, and looks like a mini meditation pagoda. But what’s really great is that the C3PO is controlled from a remote control, so, unlike its predecessors, it doesn’t require the performers to strain themselves by carrying it back and forth. Because of this, they say, the robot did not know a moment’s rest on the site: everyone kept chasing it back and forth. In the photo he is in one of the rare moments of downtime.

Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac at the 2015 Comic Con festival in San Diego
Comic Con in San Diego, the largest costume festival in the United States on the themes of cinema and comics, is a Mecca for fans of a wide variety of films, comics, cartoons and TV series. In 2015, 167 thousand people took part in the four-day event - a record number in the history of the convention! One of biggest shows This year's festival was the presentation of the film "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". It began with a meeting between Abrams and the team of actors with fans, and ended themed concert and fireworks. The fans went wild, and the young actors happily posed with lightsabers in their hands to the delight of the audience.

Han Solo, Chewbacca, Rey and Finn on the Millennium Falcon during a break
Fans rejoiced when they once again saw the unsinkable Han Solo and his faithful companion Chubbaku on the screens - naturally, on the famous Millennium Falcon. By the way, bring back the famous spaceship smuggler Solo was by no means an easy task: after all, it was necessary to restore him in every detail so that the audience would not notice the difference. Designer Darren Gilford received all the sketches and drawings of the previous Falcon. He also had help from Mark Harris, a film veteran who helped create Han Solo's ship in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Even Harrison Ford, remembering that he once worked as a carpenter, took part in the construction of the ship. And, I must admit, “Millennium Falcon” was just perfect!

Return of Luke Skywalker
The return of Luke Skywalker, and even performed by the same Mark Hamill, was a complete surprise for viewers. Prior to the film's release, it was kept a closely guarded secret, not including Skywalker in promotional materials. At the same time, fans, of course, found out about Luke's presence and wondered until the very end what it would be like. Perhaps he will turn to the dark side of the Force? Fortunately, this did not happen. But the fact that Luke appears only at the end of the film, and not for long at that, disappointed many. But here the writers could not do anything: every time they tried to make Luke’s presence more significant, he crushed the entire plot, and the creators were afraid that against his background the audience would not notice the new heroes of the saga. As a result, Luke appeared in only one episode - but his appearance was even more significant.

Andy Serkis as Snoke - using motion capture technology
Andy Serkis is no stranger to dramatic changes in appearance, complex makeup and computer effects: he has played many ugly creatures - from Gollum in The Lord of the Rings to the head of the ape empire Caesar in Planet of the Apes. This time it’s the turn of the main villain, Master of the feared First Order Snoke. His face is terrifying, but this time Serkis didn’t have to spend several hours in the dressing room. Filmmakers have used modern technology motion capture, which allows you to superimpose the desired image on a moving object. Dots of light visible on Serkis' face capture minute muscle movements before a computer replaces his own face with an eerie mask that moves in the same way as the actor's face.

Maz Kanata - new digital character
Another new character, modified beyond recognition on the computer, is the old smuggler Maz Kanata, mysteriously endowed with Power. It is simply impossible to recognize the pretty Kenyan Lupita Nyong'o in her. It was originally planned that Maz Kanata would be puppet character, but then the director decided that the character should be more alive - and Lupita, following Andy Serkis, had to put on a suit to shoot scenes using motion capture technology and learn how to use it.

Luke, Leia and Han Solo reunite in San Diego
Star Wars fans have been waiting for this scene for many years: at the ComicCon festival in San Diego, Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in the first films of the trilogy, Mark Hamill, who played the role of Luke Skywalker, and the eternal Han Solo, the incomparable Harrison Ford, appeared on the same stage! The heroes united in front of fans after they came to the set of The Force Awakens together after a long break. Mark and Kerry said they were truly happy to be back. “Now everything is the same as then, only even more soulful,” admitted Carrie Fisher. Following them on stage, Harrison Ford amazed fans with the statement: "I never thought I'd be back. But after reading the script, I saw some really great ideas in there, and I'm glad I'm a part of it." Coming from Ford, known for his many years of skepticism about Star Wars, this was truly a valuable admission!

The Return of Peter Mayhew
The names Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford are known to all Star Wars fans. But the name Peter Mayhew is by no means on everyone’s lips, and even more so, few people know this actor by sight. Meanwhile, he is as much a veteran of the saga as Ford, and, moreover, his permanent partner. Peter Mayhew, an impressive 2m 20cm tall actor, played Chewbucka in the first three films of the trilogy - and has now returned to reprise his character in The Force Awakens. True, the actor is now 71 years old, and it is difficult for him to move around the set in a heavy Chubbucky suit. Therefore, most of the scenes requiring active movement in the costume were played by Finnish actor Joonas Suotamo, and Mayhew was constantly by his side and, if necessary, provided technical advice.

Kylo Ren laughs
Adam Driver, who plays Kylo Ren, has excellent comedic acting skills. He successfully demonstrated them both in the series “Girls,” still airing on HBO, and in the film “When We Were Young.” In The Force Awakens, however, Adam got the role of a villain without even a hint of a smile on the TV show. However, viewers could see Kylo Ren laughing on the famous American TV show Saturday Night, which in January 2016 showed a five-minute parody of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, in which Kylo Ren, hiding under the guise of simple technique, incognito conducts an inspection of the Starkiller starbase. The parody turned out to be funny, and Adam, looking at the screen, could not stop laughing.

Carrie Fisher and JJ Adams - friendship on set
During filming, a truly warm relationship developed between Carrie Fisher and JJ Adams. "She's just brilliant," says Adams. "She has a free associative thinking, her magnificent ability to find the funny in everything, a divine flair for wordplay... I’m delighted with her!”
However, this photo hints that perhaps there was something more than friendship between the actress and the director. Carrie Fisher didn't have much luck personal life- maybe “Star Wars” will be the beginning of a new star-studded romance for her?

Star Wars' biggest fan, Simon Pegg, on set
Actor, writer and producer Simon Pegg is the world's biggest Star Wars fan. He has dozens of films to his credit, including collaborations with JJ Adams in the films "Mission: Impossible 3" and " Star Trek"But he never hid that he was ready to give left hand for getting at least a cameo role in Star Wars. And he got it! In “The Force Awakens,” Pegg played a menacing-looking goblin with a huge drooping nose.” And although the role was the most passable, Simon was happy!

Rey, Finn and Kylo Ren: last fight
The final fight of Rey and Finn with Kylo Ren is the culmination of the whole picture. The choreography of the battle was worked out to the smallest detail. To add verisimilitude to the scene, the creators of the film did not rely on computer technology, creating in the pavilion the scenery of a snow-covered planet turned into the deadly Starkiller base. The ominous frozen forest adds emotional tension to the scene.

John Boyega at the world premiere of The Force Awakens
The world premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens took place on December 14, 2015 at the famous Chinese Theater in Los Angeles. It was there in 1977 that the public first saw the fourth (chronologically first) part of Star Wars, which instantly became a cult favorite. The premiere of The Force Awakens was attended not only by the entire film crew, but also by many celebrities: in order to accommodate everyone, the organizers had to extend a red carpet almost half a kilometer long to the entrance to the cinema! And the reception tent stretched for four blocks along Hollywood Boulevard. The event became truly iconic, to match the film.

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 Death Valley National Park, 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, an ancient Mayan city that is 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 remove Royal Palace Thida, the seat of the head of the human population of Naboo, Lucas and his team had to travel to Seville (Spain), where the Plaza de Espana building built for the 1929 Iberian-American Exposition 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 his student Anakin Skywalker, who had already crossed over to the dark side of the Force, and 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 troops of the empire (an addition to the game is dedicated to it) Star Wars: Battlefront"), 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)

Once upon a time during the Cold War, this base was actively used, but now it has turned out to be abandoned and only thanks to filmmakers it has not been 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.

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 to his credit. In fairness, it must be said that he had already made films in the fantasy genre, but it had no 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.