Just a month and a half after The National brought you the first exclusive photos of the Star Wars: Episode 7 set in the Abu Dhabi desert on April 15, TMZ has come up with the latest batch of illicit shots from the dunes, and we take our hats off – they've done it with some gusto.
The set of 45 shots, released after the Abu Dhabi shoot concluded at the weekend, reveal various cast members, aliens, and a number of the pieces of set and features that we'd already reported had been built in the desert, including a Tatooine market place, a large alien-looking building, a huge tower, and some explosions for good measure.
Our own sources close to the set suggest that the photos are real (and frankly if they're not, some cosplayers have gone to a lot of effort to fake them, even by Star Wars fans' standards), adding that they hope the team member responsible for the leak has been paid a lot of money for the photos. Now we're not one to read too much into things, and that may be a genuine good will message. A more cynical soul could conclude though, that unless this is one of JJ Abrams elaborate ruses it's not going to be hard to work out where the shots came from. The set was subject to uber-secrecy, and the sheer intimacy of some of the shots is going to make it pretty easy to guess the culprit. A really cynical sort could further extract that they might be needing that money when their blossoming Hollywood career nosedives.
We also gather would-be Star Wars tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of the set now that the Abu Dhabi shoot has concluded may be in for a disappointment, however. Although nothing is confirmed, all our information suggests the set won't be left in place like its Tunisian predecessor. When the original Tunisian Tatooine set was built in the seventies, taking it down wasn't really seen as necessary as no one had any idea of the cultural icon Star Wars was set to become. With so much cultural and financial baggage involved with the launch of the new trilogy, however, we understand that Disney may prefer to keep their cards close to their chest by pulling the set down and putting it back up again if required in future. Modular construction has, after all, come a long way since the 1970s, so fan boys and girls may just have to wait for the anticipated December 2015 release to get their next glimpse.