National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

George Lucas returned to the director's chair for the first time since the original Star Wars to launch this prequel trilogy for 20th Century Fox. Released in May 1999, The Phantom Menace became a cultural event, introducing a new generation to the saga while expanding the mythology of the Force, the Jedi Order, and the Republic. It remains a significant document of late-1990s blockbuster filmmaking and the ambitions of digital production at that moment in cinema history.

This cell, titled R2-D2 and C-3PO, captures both droids together in the cluttered workshop surroundings of Tatooine, where a partially assembled C-3PO stands alongside R2-D2. The frames represent the work of Anthony Daniels and Kenny Baker, the performers who brought these characters to life across the entire saga, here reunited on 35mm in one of their earliest shared moments within the prequel timeline.