A Prequel Potpourri

As I’m currently knee-deep in preliminary research for future Galactic Style Guide entries, our offering this month is a slight change of pace. This latest round of scrutinization has been turning up a lot of unexpected details in the Prequels, and though some of these insights fall a little outside of our main living-history costuming wheelhouse, I still think they’re worth sharing, so please enjoy!

Anakin’s desk decor
While it’s easy to overlook while watching the film, if you pause any random Star War (or only pay attention to what’s going on in the background) you can usually pick out all kinds of crazy stuff. Case in point, Anakin’s bedroom desk – which you probably didn’t notice the first time (because you’re not supposed to!), but if you’re familiar with GFFA beasts of burden, you might spot a surprising detail if you pause this scene:

How about now?

That’s right, Anakin’s desk decor includes a ronto figurine! My first assumption was that this was the Hasbro toy released in 1997 (to coincide with the Episode IV Special Edition and the animal’s first appearance), and while I suppose it’s possible it was available on set at the time (Episode I began filming several months later on June 26, ’97), upon closer scrutiny I don’t see any of the articulation of the toy. I wonder if this was originally a maquette from the production of the Special Edition?

Speaking of Anakin’s desk, minus all the clutter, it’s actually a really cool design!:

(These pictures come from a recent exhibit at the Reagan Presidential Library of all places, which examined the connections between Lucas’ films and Ronnie’s Strategic Defense Initiative, aka “Star Wars”).

The Son of Skywalker’s Bling:
While I find it pretty obnoxious to use, I do occasionally swipe through Pinterest to gather references for future articles. Imagine my surprise the other day when I came upon an Episode I character called “Rehtul Minnau”, played by none other than Nathan Hamill (son of Mark):

“Wow”, I thought, “Naboo clothing as seen in the Prequels continues to always keep me on my toes! …And what’s that honking big thing on his tunic??”
The shape felt vaguely familiar, and then my jaw hit the floor. I knew I’d seen that shape before…because I’d been seeing it for 27 years…in the Episode I Visual Dictionary:

Looking at this picture without scale, I had always imagined these pieces of jewelry were fairly small (one to two inches), but as we can see here, Rehtul’s ‘spider’ looks more like four+!

Victory parade twins?:
I feel like this next instance reveals a big difference in how I’ve come to approach the films as primary sources, versus much of the fandom.
As I was gathering and analyzing examples of civilian Naboo fashion, I was looking at the people standing behind our main characters at the end of Episode I. “Huh”, I thought, “that girl standing next to Jake Lloyd’s little sister looks kind of familiar.”

I ran back a few seconds, and look who I spotted overlooking the parade!:

Now, the Doyleist (out-of-universe) explanation is simple: they used the same girl to film both scenes. If there’s a Wookieepedia article on her, it’s probably also titled “Unidentified Naboo Girl”, but since the Wook and the fandom tend to use Watsonian (in-universe) explanations, we’d probably be told that these are a pair of identical twins who were both present at the victory parade!
However, while I know a big part of ‘fictional reenacting’ is treating these titles as Primary Sources, I find that the deeper I go into the rabbithole of researched-focused costuming, the less I feel like engaging in Watsonian explanations. (I realize I’m a lot more comfortable doing so in a subcreated setting like Middle-earth, which as the sole creation of Tolkien automatically has more consistency, but also since its explicit use of frame narrative lets us easily account for different narrator POVs and agendas.)
Anyway, instead of doing endless mental gymnastics to try and explain weird little continuity errors like this, I begun to find it far more satisfying to wield Occam’s Razor and recognize that we simply aren’t meant to pay this much attention to such things. Extras like these “twins”—or the dozen folks apparently teleporting around the streets and alleys of Mos Eisley and Mos Espa!—can (and should?) probably best be understood as what they are: generic folks who are there to fill in a scene and give the impression that a setting is a living place (and, for our purposes, of how the locals dress!). What do you think?

Anyway. Come to think of it, now that I’m looking at this girl even closer, check out that shiny piece under her chin – is that a….?

It’s pretty wild that it looks to be almost gold-plated on film, whereas the prop is deep green, but Rehtul’s ‘spider’ above looked kind of bronze-y even though the prop was BLACK, so I guess film lighting is just Really weird? Either that, or could the the DK folks have painted the props after filming?
Now what I want to know is: can we figure out who else onscreen might be wearing the other pieces of jewelry???

Answer: nearly! I found there’s a fellow in one of TPM‘s final shots wearing another ‘spider’ brooch:

AND the fellow standing behind our mystery twin has what sure looks like a pair of ‘fish’ brooches at his collar, which are painted in a cool gradient that is definitely more colorful than the Visual Dictionary example:

The purple pin looks a good deal more complex than the rest of the jewelry, but that’s because what we’re looking at is not one piece – it’s a stack of THREE, and they’re actually a design we’ve seen before! It also helps if you turn it 90 degrees:

Still pretty busy looking…still not familiar? What about this?

Well, whatdyaknow?!! It’s the ‘alternate royal Naboo crest’ as seen here on the buckle of Padme’s Episode I battle outfit. The Naboo symbol pops up on several of Padme’s outfits throughout the Prequels, but this one seems most strongly represented on her TPM costumes. (I actually found someone that sells a replica of this buckle on etsy and it’s gorgeous!)
Even after carefully scrutinizing all the background folks we can see on Naboo, I’ve yet to see the final wing-shaped piece of jewelry on any characters, but we see most of them from the back so I’m guessing it’s in there somewhere, too.

While we’re still on Naboo, let’s finish up with a bit of weirdness I spotted in Episode II. In the meadow picnic scene, I noticed that something weird going on with Padme’s hand. For an entire 45-second shot, she looks to be touching or holding something, looks at it, and then lets go… ???? Checking the script revealed no hints, so after rewatching the shot a bunch of times, I still have no answer… My best guess is that Padme was meant to be holding or fiddling with some piece of picnic paraphernalia that was supposed to get composited in later, but never was. What do you think?

And I think that will wrap up our diversion from our usual programming! What background weirdnesses have you spotted onscreen? Drop a comment below or come discuss with us at the SWLH community on facebook, and we’ll see you again soon! Enjoy reading? Even for an entry like this, writing and compiling takes a lot of time and energy (no ChatGPT clanker text here!), so please consider supporting my work with a small donation below – and let me know this obsessive eye for detail is appreciated! 😉 Thank you!