Star Wars in the Redwoods

After passing the almost-hidden entrance and needing to turn around at Grizzly Creek State Park, we finally located Owen Cheatham Grove where the speeder bike sequence was filmed. Unfortunately, this is the only Return of the Jedi location that is both accessible to the general public as well as not having been logged decades ago. The majority of Return of the Jedi was filmed on private land near Crescent City that has long been torn down, hence the reason the film was allowed to blow up trees and set off explosives. But yes, after passing completely by the sign, we did end up finding Owen Cheatham Grove.

Now, I certainly could not go into this location unprepared. Why go all the way to the Redwood forests without the appropriate gear?

If I want to embrace my inner-Luke-Skywalker, I'll need to look the part, right?

There we go! Much better!

Right, off into the woods.

Luckily, George Lucas is not one to wander far when filming. Admittedly I don't know how much he actually filmed here, it may have only been two camera men with a steadycam rig, but just as when we visited the Star Wars locations in Death Valley we discovered that the main bits of landscape we needed to find in order to line up our pictures ended up being no more than a couple of minutes walk.

We actually spied the fallen-over tree as soon as we entered the grove (more on that later) but we decided to stick to the main path because the first thing I wanted to locate was the crossed-beams. It didn't take long, maybe five minutes tops and there was no mistaking them once we spotted them.

I should point out that this image is mirrored to make it look more like the shot in the movie. The beams actually go the other way. I'm not sure why they flipped the image, maybe the shot was printed and they realized it looked better mirrored as the speeders go by. Luckily, not only did I have my fashionable outfit packed with me, my Star Wars action figures had also made the journey.

So here it is, the scene of the crossed beams from Return of the Jedi and my little action figures re-enacting the same flyby with the patient assistance of my wife.

We then wandered around the grove for a while, hoping to spy the stump that the biker scout met his demise on.

Unfortunately this log was nowhere to be seen. We found two possible contenders but there were too many trees surrounding both for them to be this log. I can only conclude this was in the private land shots, even though some fans have shown pictures of it in their travels.

So this brings us to the fallen-over tree we spied when we first entered. You pass through it as you make your way out of the grove. We did so and then turned around to get this picture.

It is used in two different sequences. First, early in the chase when Luke and Leia pass right underneath it. Here's the shot from the film:

And here's a collection of images I took and stitched together to give the idea.

And to get the biker scout in there, my wife held one aloft (I didn't bring two scouts)

Here's the reverse shot after Luke and Leia pass through the hole:

And my action figures following suit:

Later, once Luke and Leia seperate, he chases one biker scout through this very same tree and down a narrow stretch of trees. The area has grown over a bit since those days but you can clearly make out the log on the left hand side.

Unfortunately that was it for official, actual filming locations. As mentioned before, we couldn't find the log that the biker scout crashed in to and despite wandering around Owen Cheatham Grove for four hours we could not locate anything else that was actually from the film. But did that stop me? Heck no! We're here, we might as well pretend we are on Endor. The following pictures can best be described as "inspired by" because these were attempts to look as though they were taken at the actual spot in the movie, even though they weren't. It still made for a lot of fun.

This next one is a particular favorite of mine.

Okay so in the movie, Luke and Leia separate and she encounters Wicket the Ewok. Ironically several days later when my wife and I got to San Francisco, we took a wine tour to Sonoma Valley and one of the tour guides mentioned how the monks in the twenty one missions located there tried to teach the local Miwok natives. The Miwoks were the name George Lucas based the Ewoks on.

Here's how I got my action figures around. Very handy to have such a sturdy plastic container in the suitcase.

And that's about it. I should also plug Costume Designer TJP "Tuck" for the awesome Endor Poncho. It made the day that much better.