Star Wars set left to rot in the desert with one man who holds hope the films will return
If it were not for the many conflicts Tunisia has seen over the past decades - there may have been a thriving Star Wars attraction in its sweeping Sahara desert. But Hollywood has left its old film sets to rot.
If you plough miles into Tunisia’s orange red desert you may be surprised to find elements of the Star Wars prequel sets left frozen in time.
Although sci-fi purists may not care to bother themselves with the divisive prequel films, there will be some who are astounded that these iconic and beloved structures are left open to the elements, as eyesores on the Tunisian skyline.
Wooden and fibreglass towers, fake pipes leading to nothing and yellowed white washed walls are the only reminder for locals involved in the filming of Star Wars, that Hollywood was ever there.
However, the man who built the sets, Taieb Jallouli, remains hopeful a Hollywood film would return telling The Guardian: “Film companies talk about coming back. Ridley Scott was talking about filming here, Pompeii was due to be filmed here, but there’s always something. I’m retired now, but most of the old technicians don’t work in the film industry any more. A lot work in construction, anything really. We get by.”
Jallouli constructed the Mos Espa sets in 1988. The smaller set was lost to the unstoppable force of the Saharan sand dunes. Some think it will re-emerge at some point when the tides turn again - but it is unclear when this may happen.
Jallouli came back on a government contract in 2005 to renovate the set as a tourist attraction, before the Tunisian revolution and a spate of late terrorist attacks rendered his mission impossible.
Around 50 technicians were employed as the prequels were being shot, with Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor. The area was also flooded with the countless extras needed to pad out the background of a full alien planet.
Some came from the nearby towns of Tozeur and Nefta. Once filming was completed, the sets were left behind fully intact, only for them to fall into disrepair before finding a short-lived second life as a tourist attraction.
In Sidi Bouhlel two white stuccoed mausoleums stand framing the entrance to its ravine. One is The larger is occupied by a man who claims he was the guardian of the mausoleum.
The dramatic ravine is half an hour east of the city of Tozeur, south-west Tunisia, and it appears in so many scenes of the original film that the 1977 crew termed it Star Wars Canyon. The Lars Homestead Exterior is probably the most iconic of all the Star Wars locations.
Miles from any signpost, road or habitation, the small fibreglass igloo sits in a perfectly still scene of abandonment. The present building is a replica of the 1977 original, but it was built by Jallouli’s team upon the original’s very foundations and then restored by a very enthusiastic group of volunteers in 2012.