The Medenine ksar depicts the slave quarters during two pivotal events-when Anakin offers recently arrived Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and Queen Padme of Naboo shelter from a sandstorm and when Anakin, having won his freedom, bids a tearful farewell to his mother.įeaturing multi-story ghorfas, or vaults, the ksar's unique shape was a product of circumstance. Lucas used three Tunisian ksour, or fortified Berber granaries, in and around the city the Berber city of Tataouine to depict the quarters: Ksar Hadada, Ksar Ouled Soltane and a ksar of Medenine. Here, Anakin and his mother Schmi Skywalker lived in slave quarters under the supervision of Watto, a Toydarian junk dealer.

Traditional Berber carpets hang from a ksar in Medenine.ĭespite being outlawed elsewhere in the galaxy, slavery persisted in Tatooine, especially in the spaceport of Mos Espa. Slave Quarters, Residence of Anakin and Shmi Skywalker | Berber Ksar District, in and around Tataouine He proceeded to name the planet after the Tunisian city of Tataouine, which he and his crew used as a base to reach nearby sets.įrom ancient Berber homes to a manmade desert igloo, here are real and imagined places of planet Tatooine you can visit today: Tunisia is also home to Tatooine's namesake. While Lucas wanted the planet to be called Utapau, it came to his attention when filming Episode IV that the name resembled that of a female character in Star Trek. 'I really was in a galaxy far, far away.' “If you could get into your own mind, shut out the crew and look at the horizon, you really felt like you were transported to another world,” he recalled. Discussing the most recent Star Wars film with Empire magazine, actor Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, acknowledged that Tunisia felt as remote as the fictional world it portrayed in Episode IV: A New Hope (1977). With its semi-arid and desert climates, southern Tunisia was a fitting double for Tatooine.

It was in Tunisia that director George Lucas and his crew filmed many iconic scenes from Luke and Darth Vader’s childhoods, and the film sets remain an important part of Tunisian heritage today.

But the Star Wars films' Tatooine-best known as Luke Skywalker's home planet-has firm roots here on Earth. It's about as out-of-this-world as a planet can get-a harsh, desert world that orbits twin suns, home to marauding 'Sand People,' miniature cloaked Jawas and fiendish Hutts.

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