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How to watch Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

2002 · George Lucas · Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones on Sightlines

4 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 3 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.

On a first viewing

  1. Watch the clone ranks stretch to the frame's edges on Kamino. (staging)

    ILM's crowd-generation software multiplies a handful of models into thousands of identical soldiers, packed into deep-focus frames.

    Payoff: The image copies the story: manufactured life multiplied from one template, with no original anywhere. In the reading: dividual. Deleuze calls a crowd felt as one affective unit a dividual: these clones are one individual, divided.

  2. Follow how the film cuts between Obi-Wan's investigation and Anakin's romance. (cutting)

    Editor Ben Burtt keeps interrupting the detective trail with scenes of courtship on Naboo, then cutting back to Kamino.

    Payoff: Two plots run in parallel, and each cut trades one mood for the other.

  3. Notice the golden light on Naboo against Kamino's cool tones. (light)

    Tattersall lights the Naboo courtship scenes like classical romance, then shifts to a harder, high-contrast palette for Kamino and Geonosis.

    Payoff: The color scheme marks emotional register: gold for forbidden love, cold blue-grey for conspiracy and war.

  4. Listen for the lightsaber hum and the new love theme. (sound)

    Ben Burtt reuses sound cues minted in 1977 while John Williams introduces one new melody, Across the Stars, into the same musical vocabulary.

    Payoff: Familiar sounds carry meaning by habit; the new theme signals this doomed romance without a word of dialogue.

The 3 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".

Carry this in: Watch the Kamino clone ranks: an army with no original, built from a handful of models.

A Deleuzian reading of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones →

How Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones was received →