Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
The Salar de Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia was used as the filming location for the planet Crait. The planet was featured in The Last Jedi, and is the Planet Lizzie and I chose for our project. We both loved the visuals of the planet in Star Wars, but we had no idea it would be as beautiful, if not more in real life.
The Salt flats are known as being one of the flattest places on earth, and it was formed by the merging of prehistoric lakes. The flat surfaces made it perfect for filming the action scenes for the Battle of Crait in The Last Jedi.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robinandrews/2017/12/10/this-is-the-beautiful-geology-behind-the-last-jedis-world-of-crait/?sh=a4b3c7675cc7
https://www.salardeuyuni.com/salar-de-uyuni-star-wars/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2018/01/05/escape-to-the-last-jedi-battleground-in-bolivia-and-stay-in-a-hotel-made-entirely-out-of-salt/?sh=db5c080631aa
Behind the Scenes of The Battle of Crait
Despite Salar de Uyuni seeming the perfect setting for Crait, there were aspects of it that were done through cgi, or built at Pinewood in the backlots.
The red dust seen coming out from the back of the ships, was meant to look like crystals being thrown up from the ground, which is a layer of white salt crystals. Unfortunately there aren’t actually red crystals under the ground at Salar de Uyuni. Instead, to create the effect of Red crystals, they used trucks with Red powder strapped to the back and drove around on the route of the spaceships.
For the other SFX work, such as explosions, the crew tested out different ways to create the Red Crystals. They tried red ice, red snow, red rubber and in the end they used red-dyed shredded paper.
https://www.traileraddict.com/star-wars-episode-viii/featurette-battle-of-crait
https://www.reddit.com/r/adamdriverfans/comments/gdwmq0/hope_this_wasnt_posted_already_rian_johnson/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Moviesinthemaking/comments/8cwqce/trench_set_for_the_battle_of_crait_in_star_wars/
One of my favourite parts about Crait is the red crystal caves. Although they don’t show the caves for long, it looks very cool and authentic.
Being a mineral planet, there was bound to be a big crystal cave somewhere, which was used during the Battle of Crait for a Spaceship Dogfight. The work for the scene was done by ILM. Industrial Light and Magic are a VFX company that were founded by George Lucas in 1975, to help with the creation of Star Wars. Their work in film is recognised for it’s quality and of course for their reputation on Star Wars.
Below is a breakdown of how ILM did the VFX for the film, it gives a much better explanation than I ever could as it’s all very technical!
https://www.animationxpress.com/latest-news/how-ilm-singapore-shot-the-battle-of-crait-in-star-wars-the-last-jedi/
https://creamerscinemacraze.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/the-last-jedi-has-subtle-easter-eggs-to-the-original-trilogy-did-you-spot-them-all/
https://alpha-step.artstation.com/projects/0XrLZ5
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/89zaju/crait_crystal_cave/