A long time ago, in a desert on this planet…
There are plenty of anniversaries you could point to when explaining the birth of the Star Wars phenomenon, but one of the obvious milestones happened today, March 22, 50 years ago in the Sahara Desert. Director and writer George Lucas had parlayed the financial success of 1973’s American Graffiti into the three-year gestation that led to the momentous occasion on March 22, 1976.
That day, Lucas, producer Gary Kurtz, and their intrepid crew arrived early in the morning to shoot scene 26 from the script, depicting the Jawas displaying their droids for sale to Owen Lars (Phil Brown) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill).
The first line of dialogue filmed that day was cranky Owen’s “Alright, fine, let’s go” command to the lead Jawa, played by Jack Purvis, who had been part of a singing and dancing duo with his friend Kenny Baker, who was often found inside R2-D2.
Hamill’s first line? “Doesn’t look like we have much of a choice, but I’ll remind him,” actually said to no one that day. Actor Shelagh Fraser, who played Luke’s Aunt Beru, would be filmed later calling up to Luke from inside the hole containing the Lars homestead.
The Sandcrawler, of course, was a partial build of the bottom part with its gigantic treads. A model was filmed later for the shots of the Jawas’ massive vehicle lumbering across the desert, and, yes, Colin actually designed the first version of it.
Colin Cantwell’s Sandcrawler design
His design was wildly different from the one fellow designer Ralph McQuarrie eventually came up with, but you have to start somewhere, don’t you? Colin envisioned his Sandcrawler as a vehicle that would scoop up the droids in the desert, along with whatever other random items the Jawas might come across. He was said to have not been thrilled with his design, so we can probably assume that he was happy with the version McQuarrie came up with.
The top of Colin’s Sandcrawler model actually looks kind of like a Tusken Raider’s head when viewed straight-on, so it’s possible that his design still paid dividends down the line.