Star Wars Fans Fix Up Luke Skywalker's Home
An anonymous reader writes "How far would a Star Wars fan go to preserve a relic from the iconic film series? One devoted fan traveled to Tunisia to rescue Luke Skywalker's boyhood home, also known as The Lars Homestead, as seen in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. On a trip to Tunisia in 2010, Belgian traveler Mark Dermul came upon the modest dome-shaped hut that George Lucas built in the mid-1970s to serve as Luke Skywalker's home. The structure was falling apart when Dermul found it, so he hatched a scheme to restore it. After two years and a lot of cement and plaster, Luke's house is looking better than ever."
That url has 19 trackers and loads a new page for each individual image. Deplorable.
Am I the only one who thinks that it looked better in the "before" photos? The new white plaster makes the contrast with the surrounding landscape so dramatic that the dome looks out-of-place.
George Lucas will promptly sue him and everyone involved for copyright infringement
http://motherboard.vice.com/2011/5/12/george-lucas-owns-the-universe-a-timeline-of-star-wars-copyright-battles
Weren't there supposed to be people living there now? I remember reading about it about a week ago. Did they arrive after this guy restored the place?
The more interesting part was the desert-sensible underground portion. From what I can see the two parts weren't anywhere near each other, just spliced together on film. From the igloo you could only see the berm around the atrium.
The rest of the house was actually the Hotel Sidi Driss...
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g293756-d523724-r32974695-Hotel_Sidi_Driss-Matmata_Gabes_Governorate.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c3Mdk_di7Q
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
It would be gorgeous in the summer. Great place for Luke to have a barbecue with his family
What. What did I say?
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beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
Most of that must have been spent on the airplane ticket and transport. That structure isn't even a real desert structure, its constructed out of cheap wood (which is not used in the desert as there are no trees), and plaster....it's not a 'real' house or building, its a SET PIECE. Wouldn't it have been more useful to rebuild it from scratch from cement blocks and then open it as a B&B? Or perhaps set up a live-web cam showing the sunset to mimic the scene from the movie. This could have provided a few jobs for local Tunisians, who have suffered great economic hardship due to the revolution. Just another useless hipster stunt.
When I read the headline I assumed that Mark Hamill had fallen on hard times and some Star Wars fans were patching his roof or something.
Maybe while George Lucas threw boulders at it. The actual story is a let down.
I just have one question:
Did he get rid of the corpses?
Thank you!
New for nerds! Stuff that matters!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It's in f***in Tunisia! What are you going to do for water! Wait for the jawas!? I got two words for you, JACK and SQUAT!
Don't get me started on the A/C!
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Now a cool idea would be contracting with the Tusian government to build the world's first moisture farm.
Science developments to follow.
The key would be to tunnel into the rock to keep it cool, this Arizona cave house in this one never slides more than 72 or less than 66! As for water - IDK solar stills? :)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/morganbrennan/2012/01/12/a-1-5-million-cave-house-in-the-arizona-desert/
I find it interesting that when such an important and effective part of our cultural heritage, something which has the power to make a culture strong, is honored, the sniveling cynics in the audience jump right in with their self-destruct song of nihilistic cynicism.
Mythology and Stories are the lens through which we perceive reality. Of course it is those who are afraid of reality who recoil from something like this like a Gollum from the light.
It's too bad Lucas lost his mind, but that doesn't take away from the original story which shaped our lives.
Surprised? It came straight from the linked bad blog. Here's the link to the Save Lars site. Mark Durmul is a impromptu guide that lead tourists to Tunisian movie locations. In 2010 some fans were surprised by the set's condition and joked about returning to restore it. The rest is in the blog (and very interesting because it contains more Star Wars and Raiders Of The Lost Ark set locations). And at the risk of being a dick, this set was rebuilt in 2002 for the prequels so it isn't known if it appeared in the original Star Wars movie (never episode IV, thank you very much).
Between what really happened at the Lars Homestead and "Han Shot First" the Empire doesn't look nearly as bad as it did in 1977.
Now the Stormtrooper fanclub has to go there again to raze the site to the ground, in concordance with the movie.
After a short bit of searching, I was able to bring up the lat/long coordinates on my navicomputer. Check it out: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=33.842823,+7.779038&hl=en&ll=33.842618,7.778471&spn=0.001635,0.004128&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=50.644639,135.263672&t=h&z=19
Nah, just get a droid who understands the binary language of moisture vaporators and get them running again. Luke did grow up on a moisture farm.
It's in f***in Tunisia! What are you going to do for water! Wait for the jawas!?
Why wait? Buy a JAWA and drive it to the set yourself.
Ezekiel 23:20
Moisture vaporators would be my guess.
Ewan McGregor and his friend Charley Boorman visited the original Tunisian set on their motorcycle trek from Scotland to South Africa in 2007. It's included in their travelogue Long Way Down.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Am I the only one who read that as Darth Marmul or am I dyslexic?
anybody else read this as Star Wars Fans Mix Up Luke Skywalker's Home? i thought they threw a surprise party for Mark Hamill but did it at the wrong house :P