Original subtitles

Narrator: Derelict yet famous.

Empty but iconic.

Five abandoned sites engrained in Hollywood history.

From the hauntingly familiar.

When you see this landscape you get a sense of deja vu

like you've seen this before.

To ghost towns that make perfect backdrops for fantastical tales.

Hollywood was scouting for a location

for a new movie they were making,

they found this amazing village, forgotten by time.

Long forgotten ruins given new life by the silver screen.

It was scheduled for demolition

but just before that a film crew came to shoot a movie

that of course, has become world famous.

And the real places that inspired summer blockbusters.

This Ridge is related to one of the most iconic stories in us history,

it was made for the silver screen.

These are five of cinemas most iconic abandoned places.

Decaying relics.

Ruins of lost worlds.

Sites haunted by the past...

..Their secrets waiting to be revealed.

In Tunisia on the edge of the Sahara desert

a curious structure emerges from shifting sands.

When you first see this landscape it's very alien, very barren,

but also there's something familiar about it,

you get a sense of deja vu, like you've seen this before.

It looks like it could have been there 200 years

or indeed 2,000 years,

you just can't tell looking at it from a distance.

Closer inspection reveals menacing features.

The people who built this obviously had a lot to be afraid of

and a lot to protect.

This high exterior wall is clearly there to protect the settlement

but from whom?

What links this place to another complex marooned 175 miles away

across the largest salt pan in the Sahara?

There's no-one here.

The sand has been pushed up against the structures,

it's been abandoned for some time.

They seem really out of place

as if they were dropped out of an aeroplane

in to here the middle of nowhere.

Fantastical events a long time ago connect both sites

but this place is far and away different to the first.

Here you see something that at first looks ancient

but you quickly realise it isn't,

this is something built more recently

but it's entered in to our collective imagination

as if it's a real place.

You start to realise that these are not all permanent structures,

what's really going on here?

Where did these things come from?

And what out of this world force made both these sites world famous?

And gave Hollywood's favourite intergalactic hero

a place to call home?

This multi celled construction is ksar ouled soltane.

Doctor Ali thabti is an expert on these strange abandoned structures.

Translation: "The ksar was protected from anything that lay outside

"because there was only one entrance

"there was no other way of penetrating it

"other than through this gate called a skiffer."

Dating from the 16th century

ksar ouled soltane is a fortified village

which straddles an ancient saharan trade route.

Translation: "Most people of this region are engaged in trade

"either directly or indirectly.

"Slaves, precious metals, ivory and other products

"were all being imported from neighbouring Sudan."

The semi nomadic culture who built this place were called the berbers.

The berber people have occupied this region since Roman times

and it's they that bought this distinct style of building.

And here we've got lots of these little dome structures,

very defensive, very small, but clearly important.

Each cell was known as a gorfer and it would hold the food reserves

for a particular family.

For centuries they would use that to protect

their grain and their olives.

This is your insurance policy, this is your bank.

They had to get through dry seasons

and they had to keep outsiders from stealing their food,

that would be a death sentence.

While it's walls offered protection from raiders

the secret to the gorfer cell success was their rounded roofs

which deflect the sun.

Translation: "Because the temperature

"never goes above 17 or 18 degrees

"these rooms preserve food products stored in them.

"So for instance barley can be kept here

"for five, six or even seven years without anything happening to it."

For centuries these domes helped protect the berbers

from the cruel conditions of the Sahara.

Then in 1976 their other worldly shape

inspired the realisation of a very different desert world

at another neglected site almost 200 miles away.

It's a link that only begins to make sense

when a distinctive dome structure comes in to view.

In the seemingly never ending desert

it looks tiny and insignificant but it is immediately recognisable.

It's quite obvious this is Luke Skywalker's childhood home.

Now you know where you are.

The scenes at the Lars homestead

really set the tone for 'star wars',

for the original 'star wars'.

In 1976 director George Lucas

brought Hollywood to this remote corner of Tunisia.

Inspired by the domed architecture of the ancient berber grain store,

Lucas built a set here and the Sandy landscape

became Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine.

It's that iconic I am surprised

that there aren't two suns on the horizon,

it's so burnt in to our brains that you expect Luke Skywalker

or his aunt or uncle to come round the corner.

This is where it all started,

the original movie set of the first 'star wars' film,

'a new hope'.

I mean, you stand and you look at it

and just for a moment you're transported

to a galaxy far, far away.

Initially they went to Tunisia

because it was a cost effective location

with the deserts they wanted

but then Tunisia and it's culture and architecture

started influencing the movies.

The Tunisian landscape seemed a dream fit for Lucas' vision.

But the brutal desert climate would be unforgiving.

So key date, 22 march 1976,

George Lucas shouts action out here in Tunisia

and it hasn't rained in seven years to this point

and then what do you know it,

the rains come down for the next four days.

A storm rolled in and it reeked havoc on the set,

in fact the top of the Lars homestead was blown right off

and the model they were using for the jawa's ship,

the sand crawler was almost destroyed.

Everything is just being washed away.

What a way to start this whole universe.

Production continued

and 'star wars' became a celluloid sensation.

Although few expected George Lucas to return to Tunisia.

So the sets were just left,

just left to the environment and left to rot.

But Tunisia's unique architecture proved too much of a draw

and Lucas did come back.

This time the ancient grain store at ksar ouled soltane

took centre stage.

They actually used the gorfers as a set,

as a location for the phantom menace

and these cells that were once used for food storage

became, used as prison cells

where Anakin and his mother are imprisoned

in 'the phantom menace'.

The ancient walls made a perfect intergalactic prison

but Lucas wanted more from the barren Tunisian landscape.

And in 1998 he decided to build his own desert site.

Almost 200 miles away in the remote nefta region.

Mos espa is an entirely invented place,

it was built as a set in the middle of nowhere

when they shot 'the phantom menace'.

Hamida chebbi worked on the film.

Translation: "During filming there were a lot of people here...

"Around 250.

"The technical team were 120

"and on top of that there were all the actors and so on.

"Sometimes there were 300 people on set, it was a big job."

Familiar landmarks of the fictional town

have withstood weather and time including the space port gate,

pod racing area and watto shop.

Moisture evaporators and other props also remain,

posing a stark contrast to the Sandy desert landscape.

Translation: "They spent nearly a whole year building this set.

"It was a big undertaking.

"First of all they scouted in may, June and July.

"After that it was punishing building this set in the desert.

"We would start work at 4:00 or even 3:00 in the morning

"and finish at 10:00 or 11:00 at night.

"They were long days.

"The shoot went on for three more months,

"then it was all over, it was like a dream."

The movie making may have finished many years ago

but 'star wars' has become intrinsically linked to Tunisia.

Translation: "They left these great sets

"which have now become tourist attractions in the desert."

'Star wars' really changed this part of Tunisia,

it really put it on the map.

It's become a place of pilgrimage for 'star wars' fans.

Translation: "I'm so happy to have been part of making the film,

"it gave an economic boost to the region

"and created jobs so that many people could earn money.

"It was extraordinary."

Today as the shifting desert sands

threaten to engulf the 'star wars' sets in nefta,

ksar ouled soltane still stands resolute.

Perched here for over 500 years

it is testament to it's builders skill and ingenuity.

In some ways the 'star wars' stories

are stories of a struggle against the odds.

And that mirrors the story of the berbers

who only survived in this harsh landscape by banding together and,

and cooperating against a desert

that was really encroaching upon them on every side.

In Ohio near the city of Mansfield

stands a haunting facility saved from destruction

by a remarkable Hollywood connection.

The same day that the wrecking balls came to tear this place down

was the same day that the filming company showed up.

But no matter what Hollywood dreamt up,

it could never compete with the real story.

This buildings origins stretched back to the late 19th century.

This site at Mansfield was chosen in 1885 for a very special reason

and a very particular project.

To take young offenders and rehabilitate

and re-educate them in the most positive way possible.

It was a reformatory

so the notion was that you weren't just punishing people

you were helping them learn

and then you would release them out in the world

and they would commit crimes no more.

This is the Ohio state reformatory.

Completed in 1911.

Inside, expert Ron puff,

finds evidence that shows how the idealistic reformatory

soon became a crowded adult facility.

We're currently in the west cell block,

this is five tiers, originally 350 cells

meant for one inmate to a cell,

ended up from the very beginning with two inmates

so we housed 700 inmates here.

You could be stabbed, you could be mugged,

you could be thrown off a high walkway.

I mean, the place was such that you were in fear of your life

each and every day.

Inmates were told when you came here make yourself a weapon

and hide it in the backyard,

so if everything goes crazy you at least know where your shank

or your rock or whatever it is you placed is so you could be safe.

By the 1930s the Ohio state reformatory

had become a brutal adult prison.

For the worst offenders there was solitary confinement

here at the reformatory.

They might keep the lights on 24 hours a day,

they might keep the lights off 24 hours a day.

The hole as it was known was crammed full of prisoners.

In one case they had a riot

and they wound up putting 120 prisoners down in the hole

at the same time for 30 days.

In this instance they actually found a body that had been murdered

and stuffed in to a mattress for several days

before anyone realised he was dead.

By the time this facility was abandoned in 1990

of the 150,000 inmates who arrived here, 200 never left.

Today this grand facility has become a major tourist attraction...

..Thanks to an extraordinary twist of fate.

It was scheduled for demotion

but just before that a film crew came to shoot a movie

that of course has become world famous 'the Shawshank redemption'.

The prison drama staring morgen Freeman and Tim Robbins

made the most of this inhospitable setting.

One of the things we're famous for

is the movie 'the Shawshank redemption'.

Now that was filmed back here in 1993.

And we're so thankful it happened here

because now we have this building to show people because of it.

'The Shawshank redemption' was the redemption of this prison.

In rural north Carolina an industrial looking ghost town

doubled for a cinematic dystopia.

You see house after house

that looks as though it hasn't been lived in ever.

The houses are laid out according to some sort of plan.

The houses look mostly identical.

And then you've got a smattering of commercial buildings and a shop.

It's a community.

But it's suddenly frozen in time.

There's little to suggest why this village is here.

This is a land of rocky peaks, dark hollows, steep river valleys,

it's not a place known for rich agriculture.

What would have bought people to a place like this?

Could traces of manufacturing next to the nearby river

offer up a clue?

Whatever happened to make everyone here move away

had to have been worse

than living in one of the poorest corners of america.

This place might have been totally forgot,

just a backwater that no-one remembers,

if it hadn't played a major role

in one of the largest Hollywood blockbuster series ever.

Calvin reyes spent three years preserving this dilapidated place.

It's really great to be able to connect people

with something that's you know, more pop culture

and show them a little bit of piece of history

that they can then fall in love with.

The structures here tell a sorry tale of abject poverty.

This is a typical floor plan.

So you have four rooms in the bottom,

separated by a main wall

and so originally you've got two families living in this house.

The last residents were early 2000s

which is still hard for people to really believe.

Because there was no running water at that point,

there's no sewer, it was a tough life.

Former residents, susie childers and Rick hames

used to call these simple structures home.

This is my house. This is the house...

It's where we grew up. ..We lived in, yeah.

I used to throw a baseball against these steps for hours

and quite a few of those balls found the windows.

In that regard it looked kind of normal.

It looked good then, it looks sad now, very sad.

This faded and battered village is called Henry river.

In 2011 it's run down appearance attracted Hollywood.

When the producers of 'the hunger games'

were looking for a place that looked rural

and impoverished but still liveable,

Henry river turned out to be the perfect place.

This village wasn't built for the movie,

this village was built 100 and you know,

six years before the movie was actually filmed.

They were looking for a dystopian environment

which clearly we have in an abandoned village.

This site was used to depict the grim futuristic home town

of 'the hunger games' main character katniss everdeen.

It's absolutely perfect, it's perfect for district 12,

it's perfect for katniss and her family to live in

because it's the real deal.

Generations of people have lived and worked here

and bought up their own families.

Thanks to the movie,

millions now know this village as district 12.

But the real story of this isolated village is altogether different.

There has to be something

that makes it economically feasible and logical

for all these people to congregate in this pretty remote location.

Geography is the reason that this town is here.

You've got a very steep valley

with a lovely river flowing through it.

A 100-year-old dam at the edge of the settlement

demonstrates the importance of the river.

I'd say about eight to ten months of the year

they'd be able to run off of water power.

The river was high enough and producing enough flow.

All this power was being used

to manufacture an important commodity, cotton.

In us history,

famously, cotton was the backbone of the economy in the south.

That cotton was being shipped overseas

to be made into cloth in britain and France

but after the civil war, after slavery ended,

cotton was still being grown in the south,

but the new idea was to build cotton mills.

In 1903, the Henry river manufacturing company

bought 1,500 acres at this site and transformed it

into a thriving cotton production centre.

The company erected 35 worker houses,

a two-storey boarding house,

a bridge, a brick company store,

the power-producing dam

and the original three-storey brick mill building

where the cotton yarn was produced.

Early on when they first started operating in 1905

they were working with 4,000 spindles,

and within a few years though they tripled that production.

At any given time they had, you know,

over 100 employees working in the mill.

This was your classic company town, everything was owned by the company,

they provided everything which in a way,

is the image of the beneficent company

that wants to make life good for its workers

but also tended to trap workers into staying in the town.

For some, millwork was their only choice.

My mum had a job in the mill,

she thought this was the perfect spot to live.

I can remember listening to my mum talk

as with a lot of other families in that day and time

when they got to be a certain age and they were able to work.

They had to work so...

..She went to work in the mill

before she ever graduated from high school.

Their entire lives were spent here.

Industrial accidents were common in busy cotton mills

and the Henry river mill was no exception.

You'd have people especially early on in production

that were coming straight off the farm,

they're not used to working in a manufacturing environment,

and here's these giant machines that they're working on

that didn't have the same safety regulations

that we have today.

Injuries were normal.

People would lose appendages, they'd lose fingers,

they'd lose hands, they'd get crushed,

they'd break bones.

It's just part of life in a textile mill.

My mother was injured pretty significantly in the mill.

She got her hand caught in one of the winding machines

and had several surgeries.

The tough working life and poverty created a tight-knit community

at Henry river.

The epicentre of this neighbourhood was the brick building

that would double as district 12's bakery,

the company store.

So this was the place where everything happened,

this is where they centred around, not necessarily the mill.

The mill is a means of making money and surviving

and this is where the community was built around,

this central store.

But as the 20th century progressed,

life here would take a turn for the worse.

It closed in 1970,

but the vast mill building was still fully intact.

In 1977 it was struck by lightning

and burned to the ground by the next morning.

You could see it for miles, the fireball,

'cause it just completely went up and there was no saving it.

With the mill burnt to its very foundations,

there was no chance of work for the people of the village

and they eventually dispersed.

Today the industrial heritage of Henry river mill village

has been revived...

It's really neat to go back in time

and see what some of these things look like

and you find everything, it's really incredible.

..And the village has also been given a new kind of history.

I don't know if they actually film some

at the house we lived in at the top of the hill,

my daughter tells me now I lived in district 12.

Off the southwest coast of Japan

is an obliterated and deserted island site.

Once the thrilling backdrop for James Bond's bitter showdown

in the movie 'skyfall'.

A high wall surrounds the island.

It's not clear what it was built to keep in or out.

So what happened at this torn out site

and what became of the 5,000 people who once lived here?

This is hashima island.

Former resident tomoji kobata remembers the first time

he saw this place,

known locally as battleship island.

Translation: "When I saw the island from a ship for the first time,

"I noticed that it really looked like a battleship.

"Another thing I was surprised by

"was the sheer number of reinforced concrete buildings."

Derelict industrial structures reveal the true purpose of this site.

Coal was first discovered here in the 19th century

and four deep shafts were sunk to extract it.

You're talking about digging a 200m deep mine

in the sea next to this tiny little island,

it's an incredible logistical challenge.

The deeper you go into the mine,

the more material you're bringing up.

And to use that to backfill

and make your island slightly bigger

to maybe then house more miners so you can go even deeper.

It kind of keeps going round and round.

Where does it stop?

By the 1970s,

hashima island had tripled

its natural size.

Reclaiming land is actually

a massive engineering challenge

because you're working with water which moves.

The levels come up and down, it can be quite acidic, quite salty,

it corrodes man-made materials quite easily.

Even so, it still became one of the most crowded places

on earth.

To a population density on hashima got to the point

where it was double what civic engineers at that time

would have recommended as being the maximum.

Nine-storey blocks accommodated the rapidly expanding population.

Translation: "There were no elevators at all

"in these high rise buildings.

"So people moved about horizontally.

"There were lots of passageways going across

"so we didn't need to go downstairs at all

"to get from one building to another.

"We could just walk across using the passageways."

Productivity was high despite punishing temperatures

close to 40 degrees celsius and 95% humidity.

The working conditions here were brutal.

Translation: "It was a really dangerous place.

"Stones often fell from the ceiling.

"It was like doing hard labour in a steam bath."

With coal deposits depleted,

mining operations ceased in 1974 and the population left.

Nearly 40 years later,

hashima island became a site of industrial heritage.

And the perfect setting for James Bond to meet his match.

The final site lies 1,000 miles from Tokyo

on the Japanese island of okinawa.

A steep hillside conceals a strange blend of ruins.

We're looking across the water toward this rising ground,

a dominating Ridge with some structures visible

that look as though it's been reinforced,

fortified perhaps.

Somebody has taken serious care

to turn these hills into fortifications.

Descending into dense vegetation beyond the warning signs

are entrances to another world.

Built into a mountain you'd never even know

this complex was here,

it's pretty much impossible to access

unless you were led inside.

I also see evidence of battle,

I see shell fragments or bullet holes around.

It's interesting that in one of the chambers

you can still see texts in Japanese

that when it's translated into English reads,

"destroy america."

How did these underground facilities contribute

to some of the bloodiest and most famous battles in history?

On this Ridge are the remains of an important mediaeval castle,

a site of spiritual significance.

But to Americans,

this Ridge means something else entirely,

this is related to one of the most iconic stories

in us history.

Aki miyazato has spent the last decade investigating

what happened on this island.

So the writings in this wall says, "destroy america."

So this is the commander rear admiral minoru ota's room

and he sent a telegram,

sent out to mainland Japan that...

..Praising okinawans.

After that, on 13 June 1945

he committed suicide in this room

with his close officers.

What led to this moment is an extraordinary tale of bravery

and self-sacrifice.

It is a remarkable and heroic story.

You can see why it was picked up by Hollywood,

it was made for the silver screen.

26 April 1945,

the maeda escarpment also known as hacksaw Ridge.

Men of the us army's 77th infantry division

were waiting anxiously

beneath the almost vertical 120m cliff.

Part of operation iceberg, the largest amphibious assault

in the pacific theatre of world war ii.

The Navy's fifth fleet and more than 180,000 us army

and us marine corp troops descended on this island

for one final push.

Planners assumed that they would be resisted

every step of the way.

This was going to be Omaha beach all over again.

At first, they encountered an eerie quiet...

..But the silence was soon shattered.

They use naval gunfire support to absolutely muller the place.

They bash hacksaw Ridge so hard

that nothing is going to be left alive on the surface.

Us infantry men clawed their way up ladders

to the smoke-filled Ridge above,

but the enemy was nowhere to be seen.

But then, once they get onto the cliff

the Japanese who are invisible just pop up and start blazing away.

Caught off guard, the troops were driven back

by a hail of gunfire.

Among them was Desmond doss, a seventh-day adventist

who refused to hold or fire a rifle.

Instead of joining the retreat back down to the beach,

doss continues to collect wounded up on this, you know,

fire-ravaged Ridge top.

Not only does doss rescue his own captain,

but he also rescues 75 of his comrades.

Doss isn't going to fight,

but what doss is going to do is save American lives

as long as he possibly can.

Carrying them one by one to the edge of the escarpment,

he lowered them by rope down the cliff face.

Yet doss individual bravery

couldn't mask his battalion's colossal losses.

When the us landed they met almost no resistance.

But that was the plan, to draw them in close

and then emerge from this network of underground tunnels.

This way they could engage them in hand-to-hand combat.

They're retreating into these fortifications,

forcing the Americans to dig them out

such as they had to do at iwo jima

and take tremendous casualties.

So this, in turn, makes the American approach

much more brutal.

The Americans are forced to kind of

pry them out of the rocks.

They're using the inherent strength of defensive warfare

to their advantage.

According to classic military theory,

if you're going in against a well-prepared enemy

in entrenched positions,

you had better have a six-to-one advantage

otherwise, it's not going to happen.

The Japanese were so outnumbered

that every able-bodied okinawan was drafted in.

Schoolboys were used as front line soldiers,

and schoolgirls as nurses in makeshift underground hospitals.

Scorched timber from American flame throwers

is testament to the horrors these children were exposed to.

Once the Japanese positions beneath hacksaw Ridge were destroyed,

us forces moved south

towards the strategically vital airfield at naha.

Here they were confronted with another underground fortress,

built into the hill overlooking the airport.

This place was meant to house a naval staff

and a really serious communications capability.

So this is the signal room,

where there are several signal operators

sending a message to mainland Japan

as well as military Navy receiving and sending,

but decoding is done by a different room

and different operators.

This is the former underground naval headquarters,

nearly 500m of cavernous tunnels.

You had to have room for the admiral, the flagstaff,

broader staff, signallers

and thousands of Japanese soldiers to defend the place.

It was built to be hard to crack

and it was built to last against a heavy American assault.

And it was about to be put to the test.

The 6th marine division having captured naha airport

encircled this bunker network.

The Navy couldn't fight back too much

and then only way they could do is with the Spears,

they went outside and ended up getting hit.

They couldn't fight back anymore, they had to stay inside.

Yet the evidence suggests these tunnels may have seen combat.

In these dark underground caverns, you can't help but notice

that some of the walls are covered in pot marks

and what look like bullet holes.

So did American forces manage

to penetrate this formidable facility?

Admiral ota saying that

"if this is the end of our operation and we are committing suicide,

"but you are free to go."

It's hard to believe, you know,

a commander would not force a lower soldiers

to commit suicide, so it's a very, very rare.

Once he had sent his final message,

admiral ota took out his personal weapon

and he shot himself in front of his staff.

And from the holes in the wall

we can see that all of his staff,

two a man, shot themselves afterwards.

Japanese culture said it is better to die a suicide

than to surrender,

and ota and his staff died heroes

in the Japanese culture.

Short of guns, some officers had to improvise with grenades,

others were found with their throats cut.

Many of the regular soldiers chose to stay

and prepare to fight to the bitter end.

Instead of fighting for control of these tunnels,

Americans just detonate all the tunnel entrances,

close them up with rubble.

And they waited a good long time

to make sure that there would be no resistance

when they went down there.

When American forces did go into those tunnels,

they found thousands of bodies of Japanese naval personnel.

The battle of okinawa was one of the bloodiest

of world war ii,

200,000 Japanese were killed, many of them civilians and children,

12,500 on the American side.

In 1970, the former naval headquarters

were converted into a museum

and in 2006, Desmond doss' story was immortalised

by the Hollywood film 'hacksaw Ridge'.

And that film brought it to the forefront

of popular culture.

'Hacksaw Ridge' is a film

which is as anti-war

as any war film gets,

and it implants itself into the American consciousness

at the same time

that Iraq and Afghanistan are going badly wrong.

Having been shot

and taking 17 pieces of shrapnel at hacksaw Ridge,

Desmond doss was rewarded with a medal of honour

for his selfless act there.

'Hacksaw Ridge' is actually a good story, isn't it?

The soldier helped others

and we believe that both, you know, Americans and Japanese, okinawans

share the history together.

And then what we do is pray for hope

for the eternal peace.

Captioned by ai-media ai-media. TV