From The Days When You Could Just Walk Up To Film Sets: Fan Photos of Jabba’s Sail Barge

I’ve never really understood the Return of the Jedi despising that I hear from some Star Wars fans. Sure, there are Ewoks, which some people don’t like. But there’s also the Jabba’s sail barge and the second best lightsaber fight in history.

And while we’re on the subject of the Jabba’s sail barge opening, otherwise known as that time the leaders of the entire Rebel Alliance played hooky from the movement and risked their lives to rescue a criminal scumbag that they kind of liked, lets take a trip in the wayback machine to a time when there was no internet, so all you really had to do to watch a movie being made was get there.

In 1982, Mike Davis and a few friends heard that a mysterious little film called Blue Harvest: Horror Beyond Imagination was being filmed in the Southern California desert, and decided to go on a little week-and-a-half camping trip to see what was out there. They trekked on foot out to the shooting location, only to discover that Blue Harvest was simply an industry code name to disguise the making of Star Wars: The Revenge of the Jedi (title not final), and they were looking at a serious chunk of movie history.

From Prop Store:

Security was relatively lax. It consisted of a chain-link perimeter fence and scattered security grunts. Mike and his cohorts were able to walk right up to the fence where they were told that as long as they behaved, they could hang out and watch movie magic in the making. They were even allowed to openly take photos! Talk about a more romantic time.

Mike and his buddies were particularly confused to see C-3PO take a dive off the barge and into the sand, wondering if this was perhaps the end for the prissy but lovable robot.

Other puzzling aspects of the shoot included Lando Calrissian walking around in bad-guy armor, prompting speculation on just how far his betrayal of Han Solo would be played.

And finally: Boba Fett in need of some help.

Many more pictures can be found at Prop Store.

(via Nerd Approved.)

Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com

Author

Close

Susana Polo

Susana Polo thought she'd get her Creative Writing degree from Oberlin, work a crap job, and fake it until she made it into comics. Instead she stumbled into a great job: founding and running this very website (she's Editor at Large now, very fancy). She's spoken at events like Geek Girl Con, New York Comic Con, and Comic Book City Con, wants to get a Batwoman tattoo and write a graphic novel, and one of her canine teeth is in backwards.

twitter