Affirming that, if there’s a bright center to the universe, TMZ is on the planet it’s farthest from, the paparazzi battle station demonstrated its awesome power by leaking some 45 photos from the Tatooine set of the new Star Wars movie. Episode VII: Back To The Beach is currently deep into filming on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, where its desert sands and no-questions-asked prostitution are making a fine stand-in for the hive of scum, villainy, and conveniently converging plot points of Tatooine. And now that filming has already been compromised by these leaked photos that you can go check out, if you’re so inclined.
While they won’t spoil anything major, looking at TMZ’s heavily watermarked, definitely not reprintable pictures should at least reassure lingering skeptics that director J.J. Abrams is remaining committed to his edict of using mostly practical effects and natural landscapes—bringing in actual, physical buildings and vehicle-looking things for his actual, physical people to walk around, in the actual dirt. And perhaps most intriguing of all is the photo of a giant, definitely not CGI, pig-like alien that reportedly requires five men to operate (and just one special person to love). No doubt TMZ commenters have already called the alien “super fat” and told it to kill itself.