A new insider we'll call Codec appeared on the scene today to answer your questions about what happened to Spain. As you are undoubtedly aware, Spain was listed on the Official Site for a few hours as a shooting location for Episode II, then promptly removed. We had a feeling that something was up, and here's a scoop you don't want to miss, only on TFN:
Location shooting in Spain was scouted, scheduled and planned, but for the moment has been taken off the list. That's why you saw the change on the Official Site, must have been a miscue there.
There is a certain "natural feature" in Spain (Lanzarote, actually, in the Canary Islands) that makes it ideal for a segment in the EPII story (and as you may figure out a major part of EPIII). Due to some changes in pre-production design, however, it has been decided that it could be more impressive and flexible to do this through CGI. The second unit may still do some establishing shots, but that depends on the need and availability of some equipment.
Oh my word ... and we also managed to dig this up. The Internet is so great, huh?
Lanzarote, unique among the Canary Isles, strange, bizarre, like a moonscape. No expanses of green, scarcely any trees, plenty of black lava. Sculpted by the great volcanic eruptions of the 18th century. From 1730 to 1736, the earth spat fire almost continuously. The lava masses buried a third of the entire island.
Whole villages disappeared, and what had once been fertile ground was covered by metre- high lava ash. This was the birth of the "Monta?as del Fuego" or Fire Mountains. In the six years of eruptions, more than 100 volcanos rose up, covering more than 50 square kilometres. In 1968, the region of the Fire Mountains was declared a national park, the Parque Nacional de Timanfaya. A trip to the park is an absolute must for every visitor to Lanzarote.
Thanks to About Lanzarote for the text and pictures! Check them out for more - you can see where they must be going with this, right?!
UPDATE Kevin tells us this as an update to our original story:
Anyway, regarding the Lanzarote stuff. If anyone wants to see Lanzarote, all they need to do is pick up a video of the Doctor Who episode "Planet of Fire" starring Peter Davison. It was filmed in 1983 with location shooting taking place on Lanzarote. It does look very impressive. I could definitely see some important Star Wars events taking place there.
Rebelscum Breast Cancer Awareness Charity Patch Posted By Philip on November 25, 2014: Thanks to everybody that ordered patches. I sent a check for $1,600.00 to the National Breast Cancer Foundation on Monday. While it's not as much as I hoped for, it's still very much appreciated. They will remain for sale in the store for anybody that still wishes to purchase them. Details after the jump.