Several scenes near the beginning of A New Hope were filmed in and around this gorge near Tozeur in south west Tunisia earning it the nickname Star Wars Canyon. This is where R2D2 was captured by the Jawas, where Luke was attacked by the Tusken Raiders and where Obi Wan first appeared to scare the sand people off. At the mouth of the canyon is the Sandcrawler Parking Lot where the Jawas were parked when they were attacked by the Stormtroopers.

This is also where Indiana Jones stopped Belloq with the rocket launcher near the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not far from here to the east is the location of the Tanis dig site from that movie.

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Although most of it was filmed overseas, some key shots of Star Wars were filmed in Death Valley. Not surprisingly, the filming locations were intended to represent Luke's home planet, Tatooine. When Return of the Jedi was made, the crew returned to the famous national park. A self-guided walking tour (with pictures!) can be found at this site.

A more complete list of the many films shot at Death Valley can be found on the nps.gov website.

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Tikal National Park in Guatemala is probably better known as Yavin 4, home to the Rebel Alliance's military base in Star Wars. This was my least favorite scene in Star Wars as a kid. I think it looked too Earth-like with all its trees, like the Millennium Falcon was just landing on Earth getting tagged by some idiot with a radar gun.

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Just in case you thought the Star Wars prequels were entirely CGI, here's an actual physical set for Mos Espa used in The Phantom Menace. In the movie, Mos Espa is the Tatooine spaceport that was home to Anakin and Shmi Skywalker.

The facades for the buildings and some plywood moisture generators are still standing. If you're adventurous, you can find Mos Espa north of the city of Nafta in the Tunisian desert.

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