CLASSIC IMAGE: READY FOR RACING!

Artoo, Threepio (note here the exterior use of the puppet version) and Padme assist young Anakin Skywalker with the final checks and adjustments to his newly painted Pod Racer, just in time for the next day's all-important Boonta Eve Classic tournament...

CLASSIC IMAGE: JAR JAR'S BIG ADVENTURE!

In one of the first live action scenes shot for THE PHANTOM MENACE at the UK's LEAVESDEN STUDIOS, Ahmed Best settles into his role as Gungan representative Jar Jar Binks in a corridor waiting area within Senator Palpatine's office on Coruscant. A brief sequence where Anakin (Jake Lloyd) and Jar Jar try to eavesdrop on Queen Amidala's first conversation with Palpatine about the invasion of Naboo was filmed but cut for time reasons from the finished film.

CLASSIC IMAGE: BEFORE THE RACE!

Respected British author/actor Andrew Secombe may not have appeared on screen to deliver his excellent vocals as the greedy Toydarian Mos Espa junk dealer, Watto, for the Prequels, but he certainly was filmed delivering those lines to the actors during the principal photography of EPISODEs I and II at LEAVESDEN, and then in Tunisia - and he was a vitally needed presence there, too, so that the actors could respond correctly to where the flying character was going to be CGI placed by the animators at ILM. Note in this shot that Secombe is wearing a hat-this visual idea for the character was dropped for EPISODE I, but it came to eventual fruition for his outdoor cameo scene for EPISODE II seveal years later.

With the Toydarian race in general back in the new season of THE CLONE WARS, and, from a brief trailer snippet, what looks like a possible return to Tatooine and Mos Espa, might we also see the return of the wheeler dealer? Let's hope so.

BEHIND THE SCENES IMAGE: IF YOU GO DOWN IN THE WOODS TODAY...

Summer 1997-in the UK's Whippendell Woods, not far from LEAVESDEN STUDIOS, the cast of EPISODE ONE have fun (especially young Jake Lloyd) in between shooting Queen Amidala's plea for an alliance to Boss Nass.