The Best Star Wars Prequel Moments Ruined By Science
While the Star Wars prequels paled in comparison to the Original Trilogy, they still offered some very iconic visuals from time to time. Some of those most striking visuals occurred in the poster for The Phantom Menace and a scene in Attack of the Clones, both of which used shadows to highlight Anakin Skywalker’s eventual transformation into the fearsome Darth Vader. Unfortunately, these epic Star Wars moments are ruined by some basic science: they took place on Tatooine, a planet with twin suns, so these Vader shadows should have been doubled thanks to the planet having two sources of light.
The Shadow Of Vader
One of the reasons that the hype for The Phantom Menace was so great is that George Lucas and his team knew exactly how to get fans excited. The chief way they did so is with the first trailer for the movie, one that portrayed the upcoming film as another sprawling, epic tale of good versus evil. And if the trailer made Star Wars fans excited, the poster featuring Darth Vader as Anakin Skywalker’s shadow, effectively foreshadowing a transformation that would shake the entire galaxy, took things to the next level.
As far as movie posters go, this one was delightfully minimal: it simply shows Jake Lloyd’s young Anakin Skywalker walking on Tatooine while his shadow appears on the side of a hut. Look closely, though, and you’ll see that the shape doesn’t match the young boy’s body. Instead, we see Star Wars villain Darth Vader’s shadow, as evidenced by the shape of his iconic helmet and cape.
Before His First Mass Murder
We get an echo of this in the Star Wars prequel Attack of the Clones. When an older Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala visit Tatooine, there is a scene where Hayden Christensen seems to be casting Darth Vader’s shadow. Considering that Anakin soon ends up murdering a bunch of Tusken Raiders, most fans have always assumed that this literal foreshadowing was deliberate on the part of George Lucas.
Those fans are only half-right, as Lucas has since claimed Christen’s shadow just naturally looked like Vader’s head, and the director decided to put it in the film, so no digital wizardry is required.
Two Suns Means Two Shadows
At the risk of sounding like party poopers to Star Wars fans everywhere, these iconic prequel moments make no sense because we should be seeing two sets of shadows. After all, Tatooine famously has two suns, and our characters would have two different sources of light casting shadows on them during the day.
There’s Never Two Shadows
Now, some fans have defended this scientific inaccuracy by pointing out that maybe one of Tatooine’s suns has already set (likelier, perhaps, for the Attack of the Clones scene). However, we’d like to point out that you never see two sets of shadows on Tattooine, making this arguably the franchise’s longest-lasting plot hole.
Nitpicking The Prequels Is A National Sport
Of course, when Star Wars films are good enough, nobody really worries about whether young Anakin Skywalker should be casting one or two shadows. But despite younger fans embracing them, the prequels are still a serious downgrade to older fans, forcing us to notice weird stuff like this. Such nitpicking would probably never happen if the prequels weren’t just (ahem) a shadow of the franchise’s former glory.
