Did You Know?

Things you might not know about Attack of the Clones.


• Kneeling over her decoy, Padme's hair is on both sides of her shoulders. When she stands up, her hair is all on one side.

• The space traffic seen in the window of Palpatine's office repeats itself exactly during every scene, day or night.

• The speeder that Anakin steals to rescue Obi-Wan is similar in design and color to a car featured in George Lucas' American Graffiti.

• The yellow speeder that Anakin and Obi-Wan use while chasing Zam Wesell, appears to be inspired by the yellow '32 Ford coupe from Lucas' American Graffiti

• The two antennae on the back of the yellow speeder disappear briefly as Anakin catches Obi-Wan when he falls from the drone.

• During the Speeder chase on Coruscant when Zam heads straight down the cityscape in the bottom left of the shot you can see an X-Wing being chased by 3 Tie Fighters.

• As Anakin chases Zam through the crowd, the same shot of him passing by a column (he shoulders by it as he passes) is played twice.

• When Obi-Wan and Anakin enter the bar on Coruscant to search for the assassin known as Zam Wesell,several actors from the Star Wars movies (whose faces are not seen due to costumes make-up or CGI) can be spotted, including Ahmed Best,(voice of Jar Jar Binks) whom Anakin touches on the shoulder and Anthony Daniels (C-3P0).

• George Lucas' daughter Katie appears as a dancer in the nightclub scene. George Lucas' son Jet appears as a young Jedi in the Jedi Archive scene with Obi Wan Kenobi and the librarian.

• While searching for the assasin in the bar, Obi-Wan says to Anakin that he fears that Anakin will be the death of him, and Darth Vader ends up killing Obi-Wan.

• When Palpatine is talking to Anikan about how his feelings will make him unbeatable they are walking next to each other just like Darth Vader and the Emperor in return of the Jedi.

• When Padme is packing for her trip to Naboo, at one point she is in her closet holding a red garment. A moment later, when she places it in her case, it has changed color to blue.

• In the Jedi Archives, many of the busts you can see are actually of members of the Star Wars staff, including George Lucas.

• When Obi-Wan talks to Yoda about who might have erased Kamino from the Jedi Archives, Yoda is instructing Younglings in sabre technique. In one shot an alien Youngling appears in the back of the class, in the next, he's in front of the class. When the shot re-establishes, the alien is once again in the back of the class.

• The shot of Anakin and Padme walking and talking about her serving as senator when they first arrive on Naboo is shot in the same way and outside the same building as the last conversation between General Allenby and Dryden before the intermission of Lawrence of Arabia.

• In the scene featured in Episode II with Queen Jamillia, Anakin interrupts Padme when she is telling where she is to stay, the queen says, "It's settled then." It is a faraway shot, but if you look very close, you can see Anakin is not wearing his braid.

• Legend say that during the shooting of Episode II, Hayden Christensen could not get enough of his kissing scenes with Natalie Portman. It is told that Christensen forced the crew to reshoot the takes several times.

• When Obi-Wan inspects the clones on Kamino, the older clones are seen eating and drinking. If you look carefully, there is nothing on their plates to eat, or in their cups to drink.

• When Padme and Anakin are in the field on Naboo talking to one another, Padme says "I went into public service", but her lip movement doesn't match what she says.

• When Obi-Wan is talking to Jango and Boba in their "apartment", Obi-Wan pauses. He's not moving and you can see the back of his head. When Jango walks behind Obi-Wan on the screen, you can see Jango's "shadow" through Obi-Wan.

• This movie marks the first appearance of Boba Fett, the famous bounty hunter.

• Boba Fett became a bounty hunter to get Revenge on the Jedi.

• He took his father's Armor, repainted all but the Jetpack from the Kamino Battle(he used a new one on Geonosis) and became Boba Fett.

• In Episode II when Padme and Anakin eat dinner on Naboo, Anakin cut a piece of fruit and "floats" it to Padme, the bite appears in the fruit a split second before she actually eats it.

• When Anakin is talking to Padme on the red couch his profile shows his mouth is moving, but he says nothing.

• During the fireplace conversation, in one of the "over-Anakin's-shoulder" shots, Anakin stops talking, but we see him say another line.

• When Anakin is talking to Padme before going off in search of his mother on Tatooine the positions of their shadows change between shots.

• At several points in the movie, characters are missing reflections and shadows.

• When Obi-Wan Kenobi is fighting Jango Fett in the rain, Jango Fett is toying with some crates outside of his ship when he first sees Obi-Wan. These crates disappear from Jango Fett's side in the next shot, and disappear completely from the platform for the rest of the scene.

• The antenna on Jango Fett's helmet switches sides during his fight with Obi-wan Kenobi.

• When Jango Fett gets into his ship after his fight with Obi-Wan, he bangs his head on the partially open door. This was intentional, and is a reference to a famous goof from Star Wars, where a storm trooper accidentally bangs his head on a door.

• Jango Fett bumps his head when he enters his ship. This is an homage to "A New Hope," in which a Stormtrooper does the same thing as he walks down a corridor, since this trait was cloned into them from Jango.

• The head-banging Jango Fett was also to show him as being so clumsy, it was genetic. Some Storm Troopers are "left over" Clone Troopers.

• When Jango Fett is chasing Obi-Wan through the asteroid field, Jango fires his guns but when he turns his ship, the "beams" that had been already fired turn with it.

• According to visual-effects supervisor John Knoll, a big cow-like creature that Anakin and Padmé frolic around in the fields with, can be seen in the asteroid belt that Obi-Wan flies through. One asteroid has legs.

• When Obi-Wan is climbing out of his starfighter on Geonosis we see R4's head (dome) facing the front of the ship and then rotate left. The next cut, R4's head (dome) is facing forward again, and repeats the motion rotating left a second time.

• During the scene set in the Lars homestead dining room, Owen Lars asks Anakin "Where are you going?" as he is the first one to leave the table. This is a reference to a similar scene in A New Hope when Luke becomes anxious to leave and Aunt Beru asks where he's going.

• Just before Anakin goes to search for his mother on Tatooine, he has a conversation with Senator Amidala. The camera pans to their shadows as they talk, and Anakin's resembles that of Darth Vader.

• When Anakin is with his mother in the Tusken camp, and she is giving her "I'm so proud of you" speech, the position of her hand on his face changes between shots.

• Anakin takes his first step to the dark side when he kills the beasts who took his mother.

• The spinning display in the background of the Lars family's workshop is inconsistently placed between cuts.

• The Senate votes to give the Supreme Chancellor full war powers. This is the same ploy Adolph Hitler used to gain dictatorial power in 1930s Germany.

• Where Luke Skywalker's T-16 Skyhopper sat in the garage of the Lars homestead in Star Wars,a smaller ship with a similar design sits parked there in this film. Also, Luke's landspeeder is visible in the garage in this film.

• When Obi-Wan sends the message for help to Anakin and Amidala, Amidala presses a red button in order to transmit the message to the Jedi council. A minute later she presses the same red button in order to view a map of a galaxy, without first doing anything which might be expected to change the function of the button.

• After Obi Wan sends the message for help to Anakin and Amidala, Amidala says she is going to Geonosis to "help Obi Wan", though her lip movement indicates she is going to "save Obi Wan."

• When Anakin and Padme arrive on Geonosis they enter the underground factories. A steel door opens above them and Padme ducks to enter. However when Anakin follows he does not duck enough and his head passes through the digitally created metal door.

• When Anakin and Padme are in the tunnel at Geonosis, Anakin stops Padme with his right hand, but in the next shot, he's holding her back with his left hand.

• Anakin Skywalker says the line "I have a bad feeling about this" while tied up in the arena. This line is also in episode I, IV, V & VI.

• The nexu rips into Padmé's back with razor sharp claws and cuts clean through her top, digging into her flesh, yet later on there is no wound to be seen.

• In the arena in Episode II Padme get her back badly wounded. There seems to be some blood involved. But even though Padme is all dressed up in white, and the scratches seems deep, her white top remains clean during the rest of the movie and does not get dirty from her wound. No sign of blood can be seen.

• Just before Mace Windu and the other Jedi arrive to rescue Obi-Wan, Ani and Amidala in the arena, the three are completely surrounded by destroyer droids. When Mace Windu jumps from the balcony to avoid Fett's flamethrower and the big battle commences, suddenly, the destroyers are gone.

• While in the arena on Geonosis, when Mace Windu is fighting the droids, his under tunic of his Jedi Garb is overlaying to his right. Shortly after, just after beheading Jango Fett, the tunic is overlaying to his left.

• Mace Windu's lightsaber switches from purple to blue when he is deflecting the shots from the Super Battle Droids. When Mace is up in the air, the lightsaber switches back to purple.

• As clone ships fly away from the arena, the last ship loads its missiles. When it is reloading you can clearly see droids on the field. In the next shot with R2D2 and C3PO there are no droids on the field.

• Ki-Adi-Mundi's lightsaber switches from blue to green when the Republic Gunships land. Once the camera focuses back to Ki-Adi-Mundi, the lightsaber turns back into blue.

• This was the first of the six movies to show the beginning plans for the Death Star.

• A number of subtle visual clues were incorporated into the design of the shots to help audiences keep track of who's who. The good guys - the Republic clones - always move from screen right to screen left, while the Separatist forces moved from screen left to screen right. The sun is behind the clones, resulting in a gloomier sky behind the Separatists. Finally, the missile contrails were color-coded to denote allegiance: the Republic rockets leave clean white trails, while the villains launch missiles that leave noxious black exhaust.

• Most of the clone troopers wear plain white armor; some of the more senior troops' armor has added colored trim on the helmet and arms. The colors denote rank as follows: Green = sergeants, Blue = lieutenants, Red = captains, Yellow = majors and colonels (the Jedi serve as the Clones' generals).

• When Padme falls from the ship Dooku shot, she can be heard screaming, but her lips do not move.

• When Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padme are chasing after Count Dooku on Geonosis, Dooku's escorts shoot at them. Padme falls from the ship holding her gun, but in the wide shot, there is no gun to be seen.

• In Episode II when Padme get blown out of the ship when chasing Dooku, a trooper that approaches Padme and asks about making their way back to the front lines, but Amidala says they should go to the hangar to help Obi-Wan and Ani. How did she know about the hangar, having left the ship quite some time before it arrived at the final destination?

• While doing the battle scene with Christopher Lee, Hayden severely injured his arm by bending it backwards while swinging his light saber.

• Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) is never eferred to as Darth Tyranus, just Lord Tyranus.

• The battleships seen in the final sequence are Acclamator-class Star Destroyers, which precede the Imperial- and Super-class Star Destroyers from the original trilogy; just like the AT-TE's are earlier versions of the AT-AT's from Empire Strikes Back.

• The final shot of Padmé and Anakin looking out on the lake in Naboo with R2-D2 and C-3PO to their right is a reproduction of the final shot of Star Wars: Episode V Empire Strikes Back, where Luke and Leia are looking out into space from the ship with R2-D2 and C-3PO to their right.

• Every movie in the series closes with a scene with no dialogue. This movie ends with a ceremony with the main characters looking at one another, then out over the lake.

• The Tatooine garage in which Luke cleaned the droids in Star Wars was rebuilt for this movie, but not completely: while the foreground and background were complete sets in the original film, only the foreground was rebuilt for Episode II; the background is digital.

• This was the first film to have an "on-location" film shown once a week to document the shooting process. After the success of this feature, other films adopted the same process.

• While on location in Tunisia, Lucas made one shot intended for Episode III. He claimed he would not be returning, and if he needed another shot, he wouldn't get it. The nature of the supposed shot is unknown, although it is widely rumored to be the so-called 'Harry Potter' scene, in which Obi-Wan Kenobi delivers the infant Luke Skywalker to his aunt and uncle.

• Due to much of the animosity aimed towards Jar-Jar Binks in Episode I, the working title of Episode II was "Jar-Jar's Big Adventure".

• Actors auditioning for the part of Anakin included Ryan Phillippe, Paul Walker, and Colin Hanks.

• Australian actress Claudia Karvan was cast as Amidala's sister and shot a scene involving the whole family, but the scene was cut.

• The part of Count Dooku was originally going to be played by Richard Harris.

• Liam Neeson was to make an appearance in this film as a spirit just as Alec Guinness had done in Episode V and VI, but injuries sustained in motorcycle accident in early 2000 prevented him from working. Instead his voice can be heard in Yoda's thoughts right after Anakin kills the tribe of Tuskin Raiders.

• There is no mystical significance in the color of Mace Windu's lightsaber. Samuel L. Jackson, after a jokey conversation with stunt coordinator Nick Gillard, asked Lucas if he could have a purple lightsaber and Lucas agreed. In an interview on UK TV, Jackson said he "thought it would be cool".

• Samuel L. Jackson is reported to have "B.M.F." engraved into the handle of his lightsaber. B.M.F. is short for "Bad Mother F***er" and was written on Jules' wallet in Pulp Fiction.

• The design for Anakin's lightsaber was based on Darth Vader's lightsaber prop as seen in Star Wars (1977). Count Dooku's lightsaber prop is curved and is based on a rapier, with an Arabian flare. Obi-Wan Kenobi uses a lightsaber prop that is a duplicate of the one he lost in battle at the end of _Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

• In this movie, Hayden Christenson became the only actor in any Star Wars movie who didn't get to choose the design of his lightsaber. It had been a tradition, but Christenson was stuck using a sabre of the same design that Obi-wan gives Luke in "Star Wars."

• Natalie Portman comment on the new look for Padme in Episode II; This is my sexed up version of the queen. I´m passed 18 so I´m allowed to show tummy now.

• Shoot onto Digital Video using a new 24 frame High Definition Progressive scan camera, developed by Sony and Panavision Inc. The cameras worked flawlessly even in temperatures of 125 degrees (F)

• Was shot on exactly the same stages as Moulin Rouge, also starring Ewan McGregor

• Like Ewan McGregor in Episode 1, Hayden Christensen made "lightsaber noises" the first time he was handed one in rehearsal. After chuckling at the young star's antics, George Lucas informed him that they probably had people in Sound Effects who could do a better job in post production.

• This is the first "Star Wars" film in which Yoda (Frank Oz) is entirely computer-generated. Oz was only required on the set to help the actors with the voice of Yoda.

• C-3PO was originally to have made his first appearance still in skeletal form. In post-production, Lucas decided to have C-3PO be complete throughout the film.

• Instead of creating a new C-3PO suit for the film, the designers repainted and "aged" one used in the original trilogy.

• Despite Animation Director Rob Coleman's pleas to the contrary, not a single clone trooper suit was ever built. Every single clone trooper seen in the film is computer generated, with motion capture performed by ILM employees.

• Director Trademark: [George Lucas] [1138] The LED lights on the back of the clone trooper helmets display a serial number. Although illegible, they all read "THX 1138".

• Since the FX model of Boba Fett's Slave I was on loan to the Smithsonian at the time of filming, a computer-generated version of the ship (with a different color scheme) had to be created.

• The CG models of the Republic attack gunships had to be extremely detailed to withstand viewer scrutiny during closeups. ILM even crafted a version with a fully decked out interior, which was used as the background for new bluescreen elements of the actors aboard the gunships shot during additional photography in London. The real life gunship interior sets were left in Sydney, so these new shots required digital gunship interiors.

• To efficiently deliver a realistic explosion for the gunship that gets shot out of the sky, ILM built a mandrill of the vessel. A mandrill is an all-blue practical miniature. It was rigged with pyrotechnics and blown up. The properly shaped explosion was digitally extracted, interacting with the properly shaped wreckage, and digital artists replaced the blue gunship with the computer-generated one.

• Many of the explosions of the final ground battle were real ones rather than digital fireballs. They were shot in the backlot at ILM. Explosions were such in demand that the compositors dipped into the library of explosions built for the Naboo plains battle from "Episode I - The Phantom Menace" to fill out the shots.

• Yoda's command center was a 1/6th scale miniature.

• Though the Republic AT-TE walkers were computer-generated, at least one 1/10th scale miniature was constructed for pyrotechnic purposes. The walker that gets blown apart by an armor-busting Hailfire missile was first shot as a miniature against greenscreen. This provided valuable reference for the animators, though the scale of the resulting miniature explosion proved unusable as a final element. Also, the miniature was shot with a static camera while the finished shot had a swooping camera move that followed the rocket: a CG walker was needed to properly move with the perspective of the shot.

• To efficiently communicate the damage sustained by the Trade Federation core ship blasted out of the sky, two versions of the computer-generated vessel were made. One bore its standard paint job. The other was the "distressed" version, with carbon scoring damage painted across the surface. Both were animated performing the same movement, and the compositors used animated mattes to gradually reveal the damaged ship from "behind" the intact one, covering the transitions with composited fire and explosion effects.

• Christoper Lee did not do all his own stunt work, although he was able to do much of his own sword work. At times they used a stunt man whose face was replaced digitally with Lee's own.

• Some of the stunt work was computer generated and was performed by "digital stand-ins".

• In the final battle nearly 90% of the music heard is temp-tracked from John Williams' score of Episode I. The music originally written for the battle between the clones and the droids was not used, but can in parts be heard on the Soundtrack. The Bonus Track 'On The Conveyor Belt' on the Special-Edition-Soundtrack was meant to be heard in the scenes around the droid factory, but also didn't make the final cut.

• Cans (containing reels) were shipped to theaters under the code name "Cue Ball".

• If you highlight the THX logo in the Language Selection page on the DVD and press 1138 with the remote you will access a hidden blooper reel.

• On the special features disc of the DVD, go to Dex's Kitchen from the Still Galleries menu (it's listed as "Dex's Kitchen and Still Galleries" in the main menu). Then in the menu that follows, use your remote to select the flier on the wall behind Dex. This will take you to a reel showing "flyers" made by college students to promote the film. They contain links to web sites which you can access if you put the disc in your computer.