Fictional Dune Worlds - Dune Worlds: How Windblown Sand Shapes Planetary Landscapes - page 272

Fig. 24.5 Remains of the Repro Haddada (Slave Quarters) set from
Star Wars Episode 1. The building has been overrun by a barchan since
the film was shot in the late 1997, and the roof collapsed. Another

barchan is visible at left (note the many vehicle tracks), and in the
background at right are several small yardangs. Photo R. Lorenz

Saturn V and later the Space Shuttle. No actual full-sized
sandcrawlers were made, but working lower sections were
used for close-ups. Allegedly, the Libyan government
expressed concern about the large tracked vehicles near its
border.
The set used to portray the Tatooine town of Mos Espa in
Episode I in 1997 is of interest. It is a fairly large set of
about 20 buildings (see Fig. 24.4 ) over a hectare in a small
barchan field between the ephemeral lakes (easily visible
from space) Chott el Djerid and Chott el Gharsa, and is a
prominent tourist attraction for the nearby oasis town of
Tozeur. Although not of concern to the film-makers,
barchans of course move. A smaller adjacent set has been
overrun by a barchan, essentially demolishing it (Fig. 24.5 ).
Another larger barchan lies to the east of the main Mos
Espa set, which is the main tourist attraction, drawing in
around 100,000 visitors a year. In the satellite image in

Fig. 24.4 ,itis*100 m away: however, its progressive
approach can be observed in satellite images in Google
Earth (Fig. 9.4 ) and the dune has essentially reached the set,
as evidenced by the field picture in Fig. 1.18 . A detailed
study (Lorenz et al., 2013) also found a 2002 image, from
which a distance of 140 m could be estimated. On average,
then, this *9 m high barchan has been moving at about
15 m per year (a typical migration rate for a dune of this
size, see Chap. 9 ) , although its rate of movement seems to
have decreased in recent years, perhaps as a result of
heavier-than-average rainfall (indeed, the Chott El Djerid
was flooded in 2009).
The movie connection makes this site an appealing one
for classroom exercises in remote sensing. It is also of
broader social interest in that if the barchan overruns the
Mos Espa set, its attractiveness to tourits may be substan-
tially degraded with a consequent economic impact.