SPOILERS!!!! BEWARE!!!!

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE PURPLE TEXT IS UNOFFICIAL REPORTS ONLY!

The purple ones are only rumors! Not confirmed fact!! Also be careful! If they turn out to be true, they could really spoil some surprises for you!!!

"Also, a message to the Virtual Edition. Firstly, I love what you're doing - although a lot of it isn't quite right. For example, my photo you used of the strange gray crafts which you are calling voting booths. These are ships! Look at my shot from inside the cockpit. Notice the device to the right under the screen? That's the 'steering wheel'. You put your palm on the larger part, and your fingertips on five smaller circles JUST VISIBLE on it's surface (you should be able to see them). You can then move the device around to control the ship. (Yes - I had a go.) The gray background is some kind of launcher for the ships. TheForce.Net - can you put a request out asking my fellow spies what it is?"

Firstly, regarding what Mr Lucas said about Ben's comments in Episode IV that "your father was already a great pilot when I met him", Anakin flies one of the yellow ships in Episode I! That's the fact, but the details are more interesting. Picture the scene:

Qui Gonn, Anakin, Obi Wan, Queen Padme, Captain Panaka, 4xR2 units, 10 pilots and 40 footsoldiers burst through the hanger doors into the hanger (as seen in the photos). Facing them are many, many Gungans - tall, white robots with backpacks on and very scary 'Predator'-style head-attachments. Like dreadlocks, but white, plastic and hanging behind their heads like tentacles.

There are also "Destroyer Droids", which 'roll' into the hanger. They then open out, rather like an earwig, into a mean, black, triped robot with guns for hands.

Queen Padme's line is "Pilots - to your ships!!". (Hang on, this is the Star Wars Script! Lucky people.) That is the only line from her. Then Ben and Qui-Gonn start to slice the Gungans with their lightsabres, whilst the footsoldiers give the pilots cover-fire. The R2 units are very confused, and keep bumping into the soldiers and pilots. It's 'classic Star Wars'. Anakin and Bravo 5 (the actress Celia Imrie) run towards 2 of the yellow ships. Bravo 5 jumps into hers, and Anakin (never having flown a ship before), takes cover in another empty one. Bravo 5 has a line here, which is basically telling Anakin not to touch anything but to get in.

Slightly later, when the pilots are in their ships, and most of the Gungans have been killed, Qui Gonn and Ben walk past Anakin's ship. Anakin asks if he can come down, but Qui Gonn in a very fatherly (take note!) tone orders him to "Stay in the ship, you're safe in there!" (more script!!).

Anakin then has some dialogue with R2 (the blue droid in his ship). "R2, do something... what can we do... ahh... cool!... wizard!... good idea, guns...". (In my opinion the lines "cool!... wizard!" sound too American and should be removed - but that's the way Mr Lucas wanted it!) At this point, Anakins ship kills some more Gungans! He then flies out of the hanger, and wins the sky battle for the Naboo. When he lands, he remarks, "I'm not gonna get into trouble... am I?" and everyone laughs, and then applauds him. That's straight from the script. My fellow spies will confirm it.

So... Anakin was already a great pilot when Ben met him. (With a little help from Artoo!)

Finally, you'll find attached a photo of a strange craft taken at Leavesden. One photo is taken from inside the cockpit, the other from outside showing 2 crafts. I believe it is the same craft the model-maker was working on in the new photo on the Star Wars site.

9/19/97 - We've been able to confirm several things from the Tunisia shoot:

- The space craft frame and ramp seen in those French Premiere pics is called the 'Naboo Spacecraft'. Is Naboo a planet, name of a people, a ship model? Don't know.
- Darth Maul rides a speeder bike in the Tatooine scenes.
- Some of the sets in Tunisia are part of a city called Mos Espa. In that city are located Slave Quarters, a place called 'Watto's Junk Shop', 'Sebulba's cafe', and the starting Grid for the pod race. There also seems to be an arena where the pod race begins.
- There is an alien cantina band in Mos Espa

9/17/97 - Today one of our sources confirmed what we've been hearing behind the scenes for a while - in the new movie, C-3PO is going to have a transparent exterior! You will be able to see through his outer shell and peek at his inner workings moving inside. Apparently they have a complicated robot puppet that will be used with some CGI. Word is they have nick-named it 'See Through See Threepio' as a joke. Anyway, Anthony Daniels will only be doing the voice of 3PO and not the actions of the character.

8/26/97 - Jean-Pierre Aubagnac got the rest of the French Premiere article and translated it for us. The interesting thing to note is that the journalist snuck into the set! Ooooo! Somebody's in trouble!! Anyway, Jean Pierre alternates between quoting the article and describing it. Here goes:

I bought the spetember issue of Premiere on my way out of work yesterday. The article is actually rather well written as Martin said. The writer - Franck Priot - appears to be a free lance journalist who embarks on a trip to Tunisia in the hope of finding the shooting scene for SW, after Lucas's conference in Caserta, Italy. He goes through several sites which were used in 76 as Tatooine's exteriors: the Owen & Beru farm (the Sidi-Driss hotel in Matmata, tunisia), the Mos Eisley cantina (village oven in Agim, Djerba island), ... Eventually he heads for Tozeur, oasis lost in the middle of the Tunisian Sahara desert, which provided dune and canyons sets for SW in 1976. The city is a huge oasis town with an airport. It owes its name and brick wall architecture to a yemenite princess. In Tozeur, people quickly mention that a film is being shot further down on the desert road, in a place called Anguejmal - the neck of the camel in arabic -.

" A huge metallic structure comes into sight behind a dune. Closer up, I can make out a base with tents, half trailer lorries and a huge antenna. Still a couple of minutes to get there. I enter the camp without slowing down, and find myself in the middle of half constructed sets. I park close to rental cars identical to mine. Two R2D2 droids are waiting in the back of a truck..."

" The camp is huge: roughly speaking, a hundred people and fifty vehicles. I cross the camp over and over, always walking straight ahead of me, with the look of the very busy guy: it works ! In front of he antenna, with its back to the trucks and construction site barracks, lays the catering. Facing it, a tennins court size tent for costumes and make up, with a small and somehow derisory table for a sewing machine."

"There is also a tribune, about 10 meter high, a set which will probably be completed by the computer. In front of trucks arrived from the UK, technicians are busy around highly streamlined speeders, new to the SW universe. Next is the set of a village main square, in a very tatooinish fashion: berber style hut houses mixed to heteroclite metallic elements, giving the "everything is recycled here" impression. A red speeder ressembling luke's lays in a corner. Englishmen go by, carrying pieces of the set. The whole village came from the Leavesden studios as a kit, for reassembling on location. It is almost complete. Tunisians armed with brushes add the last touches to details."

However, no camera around this set. The journalist has to reach the other set: the access ramp to the spaceship. There is the shooting action. He blends in the group of technicians, helping to move the blue parasols for instance. The team is too concentrated to notice the guy in a T shirt and surf boxers working with them in the middle of the desert. The journalist only has a wide angle lens on his camera: it is not always appropriate.

Insert here the parts about Neeson's scene. Martin's excerpts cover most of it. One more detail: the journalist links the single take decision to Lucas new idea on film making, in which shooting and editing are interlaced, allowing the director to visualize the final product (minus the special effects), decide to go back to shooting, then editing, etc.

Sorry, I do not have a scanner. Your scans are already pretty good. The duel pic for instance is blurry in Premiere. There is a web site for the magazine, at www.premiere.fr. You'll find a scan of the cover there, with Nicolas Cage as the devil in a cage. The star wars part is the first title found at the left of Cage's face. However, no mention of the article on the site. Don't forget the whole story and pics were "stolen" by an intruder on location.

8/25/97 - Here's a color picture of the speeder picture from the French Premiere Magazine. I don't know who it originated from, but we got it from Ain't It Cool News.

Notice the cool ship that looks like a pick-up truck in the background! Wow! :)

8/25/97 - Thanks to Martin Laverdure , Jean-Pierre Aubagnac, and Roderick Vonhogen, we have translations of some of the more interesting parts of the French Premiere Prequel Article!

This part talks about Liam Neeson's scene:

The huge Jedi moves back one step, turns to the child [lying] in the sand behind him and yells: "Anakin, go back to the ship !". Then he parries the light saber stroke of the black warrior with the flame red face, and resumes duelling with him... Liam Neeson's sword - as Liam Neeson IS the Jedi - is truly a green plastic tube. That of the desert warrior is orange. The Sahara desert extends as far as the eye can see, temperature is above 50 degrees Celsius, and the closest oasis is 30 kilometers away. George Lucas and his team are shooting the new trilogy in the Star Wars saga !

It then talks about the ship:

I hop into the car and drive to the huge scaffolding standing like a mirage on the top of a dune. Tubulatures support the entrance to a space ship, with a tilted ramp extending down to the ground. Here too, it is clear that the rest of the set is still in ILM's computers.

It then talks about the actors in Tunisia:

Further down, a series of small brown tents for the actors. Their names are written on the tents: Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ray Park and others, but no Ewan Mcgregor to be found !

More on Liam Neeson:

Liam Neeson plays the part of a Jedi knight. The proud and martial appearance given by his high leather boots and rough cloth tunic is tempered by his sun glasses: square, yellow and gaudy, they are holding on his nose with a band-aid... In this sequence, he turns to warn Anakin !

More on the Neeson Scene:

After two takes, the team moves on to the next sequence, which promises to be more complex. The travelling rail has to be moved, and a rock swept: this rock will be used in the duel scene as a visual reference to follow the moves of the two fighters. The stunt men rehearse the fight: three fencing passes, the Jedi steps back, takes his guard, pauses, three more saber strobes... Lucas quietly explains what he wants: the "reference shot" of a fixed camera standing in the axis of the warriors displacements, as well as another camera, on the travelling rail, following the scene laterally. First take: Liam Neeson and his black dressed oponant are apparently well trained. They go about every sequence in the fight with pace and speed. One drawback: the black warrior's plastic tube gets caught in his robe for a second. "Cut !". George Lucas leaves the video monitors under the parasol and joins the actors: "Perfect, it is the good take he says, next !" He does only one take. While shooting the most anticipated movie in the history of cinema, while wall street observes the multinational bids on who will get the license for manufacturing toys after his creations, he only does a single take for a 20 second fight scene. And nobody seems amazed around him...

Finally, the end of the article:

Today, the young movie director is as serene as a bonze. The movie clap gives the name of the director: Yoda ! So much like him. George walks slowly among the team. Behind him, the sand is white with salt: it rained yesterday over Tozeur. This happens every 20 years, like visits from Star Wars. George stops and says: "Sand, sun, storm: just as if we were on the shooting of Star Wars !" The team smiles, nobody has a clue what he is talking about. No surprise, as none participated in the original trilogy, from which only Lucas embodies the tradition. He returns to his monitors, slowly, as the air vibrates with heat. Yoda is alone in the middle of the desert.

That's it! We also want to thanks the following people who offered a hand in the translations: Keith Abbott, Bas-Jan Walewijk, Joseph, Lee Weinberg, Mike Bastarache, Buddy Harville, Jane & Chris Prosser, David Vaillancourt, Miami Joe, pliades, Garrett, and Mathieu Vallier

8/25/97 - Here's a report from the Ain't It Cool News Spy Beyonder:

The Beyonder has contacted me again saying that the prequel-Slave1 Pretaltype sketch that it/she/he did, actually should look more like a cross between Slave 1 and a HIND helicopter gunship. But since I have no idea what a HIND helicopter gunship looks like, that doesn't help me much at all. (NOTE: If you want to see a Hind Helicopter, click Here!, Thanks to Tristan Pruss for pointing it out.)

Remember way back when I told yall about the "Lightstaff"? And dozens of you sent in scans of covers of Dark Horse comics? Well THe Beyonder, who sees all, says it will be a red double ended lightsabre (like in Shadows of the Empire) used by a little guy (5ft 4 ish) who has a black face with little horns all over it. Also the blaster rifles are based on the ones we know (Sten machine gun) with bits added to make it look like older technology.

Lightsabres have only slightly different designs. Which makes sense, it was an ancient weapon right?

Grans will be in it, not little old ladies though! Ree Yees type of Gran's. I really don't know what this means. Is this in reference to "Gran" Moff Tarkin types? (NOTE - These were the goat faced cretures in ROTJ with three eyes.)

There are nasty machines called Imperial Attack Droids, they are virtually identical to Phase1 Dark Troopers from the Dark Forces game. I hated those things, they killed me more than once.

8/24/97 - More reports filter out of the French Premiere Magazine. This picture shows a Tatooine town, possibly Mos Eisley, with a red speeder nearby. The picture comes from Pliade's Episode 1 Site.

Also, our friend TINMAN (Paul Davidson) created the duel picture with the lightsaber's drawn in. Great work, Tinman!

8/23/97 - Mister W (who also contacted Dark Horizon's) sent us some interesting pics! Here's his description:

"I'm Mister W (I'm french and I'm sorry for my english) and I send you pics from STAR WARS in Tunesia! A french journalist (from PREMIERE in french edition) has working on the set. I think you'll love it."

Now did you guys go read the rough draft of Star Wars? NO!?! Durn it! We told you to! In that first draft at the very beginning, Anakin's father and Anakin are on a desert planet and go to face a Dark Jedi in a duel. Look kind of similar? Yeah, we thought so too. Anyway, thanks to Jay Majer for reminding us of this.

Just for your reading plaesure, here's the section of the script we are referring to. It is from the rough draft of Star Wars written in May of 1974:

" With the aid of the electrobinoculars, Deak watches the running lights of the starship flash on and off. Suddenly, something huge moves in front of his field of view. Before either of the two young boys can react, a large, sinister SITH warrior in black robes and a face mask looms over them. He carries a long lazer- sword which cuts young Deak down before he or his brother are able to raise their weapons. The startled Annikin backs away in horror, then settles down and ignites his lazersword, which creates an eerie red glow. He stumbles over rocks as he attempts to avoid the charging SITH knight. The evil warrior swings his mighty lazersword, but Annikin manages to deflect the intended death- blow.

Finally, Annikin is able to assume a defensive stance, and the two warriors stand, sizing up each other. The black knight is at least seven feet tall, and dwarfs the young JEDI. They stand for a few moments, almost frozen, then in a flurry of blows, lazerswords clash with the sound of electric snapping and popping. Annikin is barely able to hold his own against the experienced knight. Many blows are exchanged before the SITH warrior is able to back Annikin up against a deep crevasse. Annikin stumbles and almost falls over the cliff to his death.

The black knight suddenly senses something behind him and whirls around to face Annikin's father, Kane Starkiller, a Jedi Bendu master. The Sith warrior raises his lazersword, but is cut in two before he can bring it down again. Kane moves to the fallen black knight, and studies him carefully. Annikin, still a little wobbly from the whole experience, attempts to stand. Kane sees his dead son Deak, and goes to him. He lifts him into his arms and begins to weep. Annikin stands bewildered, watching his father cradle his dead brother.

That's it. But just wondering, could Liam Neeson be playing Anakin Skywalker's father? Hmmmm.