Star Wars trek: Whippendell Woods - November 2001
|
One of my big disappointments in my 1999 Star Wars trek was not finding the right spot at Whippendell Woods. We managed to find the woods but ended up just walking by all of the filming locations. I guess we never guessed how hard it was going to be to find one specific tree in the middle of the forest. Plus the pond that they swam into in the movie doesn’t really exist and we had walked about an hour looking for it before finally coming out at Cassiobury Park and realizing that we were never going to find it. So when a friend of mine said he was going to London for some autograph hunting I jumped at the chance to join him and take another crack at Whippendell Woods. Read More. |
|
| On my second visit I contacted Mike Rush who had created a great website documenting all of the locations there and he graciously agreed to show me around. I met him at a train station nearby and he drove us the rest of the way. With a guide, the locations were very easy to find. There is nothing in Cassiobury Park, everything is in Whippendell Woods. The shots are split into 3 separate areas. The main area that they did most of the filming is actually very small. They used a lot of different angles to make it appear as a much larger location. 1. Across the street from the parking area is where Amidala and the rebels planned their attack on the city of Theed towards the end of the movie. It’s easy to see once you look around and the shots are easy to line up. |
|||
|
|||
| 2. Inside the park to the right of the parking area is where most of the scenes on Naboo were filmed. You don’t have to walk too far in. Just take your time and look around at different angles. Some of the trees have knots and markings that are identifiable. Plus there is a gully that the STAP droid crashes through. | |||
|
|||
|
|||
| 3. The lake they jumped in is really just some bushes and trees a little further in the park, the water was added in digitally afterwards. This is one of the hardest of the locations to find since it is separate from all of the others and the trees are small and not as distinctive. If you walk more then 10 minutes into the park though, you've probably gone too far. | |||
|
ColinK