National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

George Lucas returned to the galaxy far, far away with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, released by 20th Century Fox in May 1999 after a sixteen-year absence from the franchise. The film drew one of the largest opening weekends in cinema history and marked the beginning of the prequel trilogy, introducing audiences to the origins of the saga they had grown up with.

This cell, titled R2-D2 and C-3PO, captures a quiet moment inside the cluttered workshop on Tatooine where a partially constructed C-3PO stands alongside R2-D2. Across three near-identical frames, the scene holds steady, offering an intimate look at the earliest shared screen presence of two of cinema's most enduring characters.