Star Wars in Death Valley photo collection

SteveHall

Hey everyone,

I posted this one a couple of years ago on the old board, but I thought I would put it up again since many of you may have not seen it. The Star Wars in Death Valley self guided tour is a really fun activity to do for a day, especially if you like the movies. To find these places, you have to search for yourself and match up the background hills, but it's not very hard once you start looking.

Tour Stop 1: "Road to Jabba's Palace" from Return of the Jedi. This is located in 20 Mule Team Canyon.

SteveHall · Posted: Mon May 28, 2007 12:35 pm Post subject:

Tour Stop 2: "Sandcrawler Station" from Star Wars. This is located very close to Artists Palette. Park your car just before you make that right turn into the Artists Palette parking area and walk south up the bank.

SteveHall · Posted: Mon May 28, 2007 12:36 pm Post subject:

Tour Stop 3: "Bantha Canyon" from Star Wars. This is located in the little visited Desolation Canyon in Death Valley.

SteveHall · Posted: Mon May 28, 2007 12:37 pm Post subject:

Tour Stop 4: "Mos Eisley Overlook" from Star Wars. It's when Luke, Obi-Wan, & the Droids stop and look at Mos Eisley from a cliff. They are actually stopping at Dante's View in Death Valley to look at the park. The second picture you see here was taken directly from the film when the camera shows what they are looking at.

SteveHall · Posted: Mon May 28, 2007 12:38 pm Post subject:

Tour Stop 5: "Artoo's Arroyo Overlook" from Star Wars. In this scene, the camera pans down to show R2D2 traveling through a narrow canyon in the desert. This location is Artists Palette in Death Valley.

SteveHall · Posted: Mon May 28, 2007 12:38 pm Post subject:

Tour Stop 6: "Inside Artoo's Arroyo", also at Artists Palette. R2D2 runs into trouble and eventually gets zapped in this scene from Star Wars.

Tour Stop 7: "Droid Dunes", which are the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes near Stovepipe Wells. It's impossible to match up the dunes in this picture exactly, as more than 30 years have gone by since filming, and dunes are an ever shifting landscape. But for the closest match, hike halfway out the dunes towards the highest peak and look northeast. If you compare the 3 pictures, the most obvious match is the mountain range in the background. But look a little closer, at the three sand dune hills in the background on the left side of the picture. The match is remarkably close, as close as you could possibly get after all this time. This tour stop was completed in March of 2008, 2 years and 2 months after first posting this on the old site.

Dezdan · Posted: Mon May 28, 2007 12:43 pm Post subject:

Great job hunting all those locations down!

~Dan
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Scott · Posted: Mon May 28, 2007 2:33 pm Post subject:

Fun! Thanks, Steve.
Didn't they also shoot some scenes in Gower Gulch? And the sand dunes scenes were out at the Mesquite Dunes, yes?

Here locally, Lucas shot the scenes from one of the movies in Muir Woods, it's the scene where they're riding those things that look like motorcycles (except they fly) through the big trees. They got in trouble for setting off too many explosions in the park.

DesertDawg · Jayhawker Joined: 10 Sep 2006 Posts: 58

Desert Mouse · Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 1:20 pm Post subject:

Awesome comparison photos! Thanks for sharing! I am going to show these to my 11 year old son, who is really into the Star Wars stuff! Maybe seeing those photos will motivate him a little more to come out to Death Valley with me this fall to see the locations in person! Thanks!

Tracy
Desert Mouse

SteveHall · Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 10:51 pm Post subject:

I'm glad everyone likes these photos. It did take initially quite a bit of research, and then I did have to take my portable dvd player with me at the time to match everything up just right. And yeah I can definitely confirm filming at the Mesquite Sand Dunes, which I've never bothered to try to match up due to the ever shifting dunes, especially after 30 years. And there was a short scene of Luke and the droids riding in the land speeder filmed on West Side Road too.

desert4wd · Breyfogler Joined: 23 Jun 2006 Posts: 102 Location: Oregon

Terrific! I'm not really a big Star Wars fan, but I did see it five times when it came out Shocked

. I like comparison photos of any kind. I try to do this sort of thing on occasion and usually it's not as easy as it might seem. Thanks for posting this again. Really cool.- Doug
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AndyR · Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2007 7:44 pm Post subject:

There was another site, with some guy on a motorbike who did a similar thing. I remember Banthas in Delosation Canyon.

Ah, found it: http://www.buckwildbill.com/deathvalley.html

Andy
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W9JIM · Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 7:22 am Post subject:

That's pretty cool. I'll have to give that a try next time I'm in DV. Here's one I did in Trona Pinnacles recently:

http://www.w9jim.com/photography/misc/pages/JetPack.html

Jim

AndyR · Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:57 pm Post subject: