I find some of the origin story fascinating. Apparently it almost started a war with Libya (2nd story).
Only the bottom part of the sandcrawler was built for close-up scenes in the Tatooine desert for Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. In Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones these large vessels appeared on matte paintings. George Lucas took many pictures of the treads of NASA’s space rocket carrier (known as a crawler) as inspiration for the sandcrawler.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sandcrawler/Legends
In Jay’s book, the author implies that the original shooting location of the Jawa Sandcrawler may have been a little too close to the Libyan border for Gaddafi’s comfort, because the Libyan government “rushed inspectors across the border to ensure Lucas’s crew wasn’t constructing some newfangled military vehicle.”
The vehicle’s original design was conceived by Colin Cantwell, and was later redesigned by Ralph McQuarrie, one of the most famous of the Star Wars designers. It was modeled after NASA moon rovers from the time. There were smaller models, of course, used for effects shots, but the bottom half of outsize Sandcrawler — complete with tank treads — was also built to accommodate a notable scene where Luke Skywalker’s uncle buys R2-D2 from the Jawas.
That’s hilarious. I wonder what Gaddafi thought when the inspectors returned to give their report.
“It’s just Jawas, sir.”
TIL my aesthetic is brutalism
Needs less metal and more concrete.
Can’t be brutalist if there’s no concrete!
I swear there were like 3 guys in the 60s or something that loved brutalism so much that they spent the next few years going to major cities to convince mayors to build the ugliest, most ghastly buildings that would remain as eyesores for decades to come.
Brutalised architecture absolutely slaps when done right
Well the right hotel looks pretty decent, although seeing just bare concrete makes me want to indulge in suspicously cheap vodka and intoxicate myself for my entire life + depression.
It has it’s weird charm, like looking back to the awful past of the USSR. These are a great reminder for us eastern europeans to never ever let another communist regime to power.
Maybe I would love the brutalism’s uniqueness but this stigma is coming strong with me unfortunately.
Mmmm resource utilization-effective monolithic architecture
