I’m currently devouring my copy of ‘The Art of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ * which arrived in the post last week. I had pre-ordered it to collect in store but well, lockdown happened.
I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on this book for a while. I have all the previous Star Wars ‘art of’ books and wanted to complete the set. As a cosplayer I love seeing the costume sketches and explanations behind the designs. It’s fascinating seeing early concepts and how things evolved, discarded or got reused for something else. These books are also beautiful to look at, with pages and pages of artwork of things that made it to screen and much that didn’t.
One thing that interested me as a location nerd is that one of the places scouted for scenes for final film in the Skywalker saga, alongside Wadi Rum in Jordan was Cappadocia in Turkey. I discussed Wadi Rum in a previous post as it was used in another Star Wars film, Rogue One. https://fromscenetoseen.wordpress.com/2019/06/23/external-stimuli/ This time the Jordanian desert was used as the planet Pasaana where Rey and company witness the Aki-Aki Festival of the Ancestors.
Cappadocia is an area of Turkey which I visited in 2006 and it is a place unlike any other. Its unique geology has created a stunning otherworldly landscape that I always thought would be ideal for a sci-fi film. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/world-heritage/cappadocia/ The whole area of Göreme National Park and the Rock sites of Cappadocia hold World Heritage status because of their spectacular natural features and landscape, as well as the history of human occupation in the area.
Cappadocia must have been a strong contender at the start of the production of The Rise of Skywalker (TROS) as it does feature a lot in the concept art. The distinct rock formations are clear to see, and in one image the artist takes inspiration from the hot air ballooning that the area is known for as inspiration. For some reason the conditions for hot air ballooning are perfect in the region and even I took an early morning flight which was an amazing experience.
Also this concept art image below uses the Jordanian site of Petra as the setting of the festival rather than Wadi Rum.
But despite return visits to Cappadocia by the production team it was decided that it wasn’t able to accommodate all the planned scenes – the chase sequences specifically, so it was passed over for the Jordanian desert.
“Rick (Carter, production designer) and I were both big fans of Cappadocia. We went there, and it feels like a seventies science fiction film, wherever you are. It’s very retro, and it’s very odd, and it’s very otherworldly. It is very much ‘Planet of the Apes’. It worked for the festival, but it didn’t have the rest of Pasanna.” Kevin Jenkins (co-production designer), page 163.
“Ultimately, Cappadocia just didn’t open up quite enough for what J.J. wanted out of the speeder chase. And the reason we were doing Cappadocia at all is so you could anchor the festival in the architecture of a natural setting. But in Jordan, there’s this fantastic rock formation. And you also get the vastness – it opens up – and the color of it.” Rick Carter, page 181.
Watching the behind the scenes featurettes on the Blu-ray of TROS shows how much was involved in taking the filming to Jordan. There was five months of building and preparation in time for three weeks of actual filming at Wadi Rum. The support of the Jordanian government and the army seems to have been invaluable and something that perhaps Turkey couldn’t have provided. Some of the Jordanian army even appear in the film (as costumed extras) as dancing Aki-Aki.
I was curious to see how much Cappadocia had been used as film location and was quite disappointed by the small list on IMDB, almost exclusively Turkish productions as well. Which does explain why I don’t remember seeing the area in anything other than travel programmes and Turkish tourism adverts. I found an official Turkish tourism website for filming in the country which has pages on each area http://www.filminginturkey.com.tr/en/location/kapadokya It also has a very pretty video which shows clips of films that have used Turkey – it seems that Ghost-Rider 2 is the only Western ‘blockbuster’ to have filmed in the Cappadocia area. There is an interesting looking 2019 Turkish production on Netflix, a series called ‘The Gift’ – which is listed as having used Cappadocia as a location so I think I’ll check that out.
*The Art of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, written by Phil Szostak 2020. Available from all good retailers. RRP £30
All photographs in this post are my own, taken 2006. Concept artwork taken from the above book.
From scene to seen 