Star Wars sets deteriorating in the desert

I always find stuff like this fascinating, who'd a thought these would exist at all today?

http://news.yahoo.com/lightbox/aban...-in-the-desert-slideshow/star-wars-photo.html

 

It sucks that production companies can get away with not cleaning up after themselves like this.

 

Did not know green screen could deteriorate.. of wait that the entire set of the prequels, not the OT ..LOL

 

I wonder what a moisture vaporator would go for on Ebay?

 

That's sad, but in some ways, it looks post-apocalyptic in a neat way. Would be neat if they could do something like that for the next movies.

 

Agreed -- although a few things left in the desert aren't as bad as, say, the ecological damage caused by something like The Beach (1999).

 

There are a few that are actually preserved, as well.

 

I'm surprised fans haven't gone there and helped themselves to a moisture vaporator or two.

 

I don't think they were expecting these mostly wood and paint sets to still be there after all this time. Given the harsh environment, they probably thought all traces of it would be long gone by now.

 

Really? I guess I must have imagined Mos Espa then.

 

Eh, a few pieces of wood in a desert aren't hurting anyone. All the plastic crap and packaging of a Transformers movie toy line, on the other hand...

 

^I'll remember that the next time I throw my McDonalds cup out the car window. ""eh, it's just one paper cup, it won't hurt anyone".

 

I thought that Lucasfilm would have had to remove it all after filming.

 

That's the thing about filming on location in places like Tunisia, film crews bring alot of money and it's extremely cheap to film there, they don't want to scare anyone away by holding them accountable for environmental impacts and making things more expensive... That said, there are much worse things done by the film industry than some plywood and mud buildings in the desert.

 

I'm surprised as well. Even more so that Lucas hasn't picked everything up to auction off or place in a SW museum he could charge admission to.

 

I'm sure Disney will.

 

This.

"Welcome to Sunny Tunisia. If wandering around in the unforgiving desert doesn't kill you, the customs office certainly will make it a wasted trip in the end."

Yup.

 

All sorts of bits - partial podracers and such were chucked in the skip after episode 1... they didn't stay in the skip very long.

If they are state property the state could sell them.