Star Wars: 10 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About The Prequels

10. Everything Was Shot On Blue Screen

Before we get into the stuff that’s up for debate, let’s kick off with one that’s objectively untrue. The sets of the Prequels weren’t all blue or green screen. Over the course of the three movies, location filming included locations in England, Italy, Spain, and Tunisia, with second unit work in Switzerland, Thailand, and Sicily. And as behind the scenes material shows, full or partial sets were very much the rule rather than the exception.

A lot of the time, if a set wasn’t built, it was either because it was a reshoot (Attack Of The Clones’ droid factory sequence) or for practical reasons. The Jedi Temple’s beacon control room is a model because it’s only onscreen for a few seconds. Which would make building the full set a complete waste of time and money. While the Geonosian arena was simply too massive to build as a set. So a miniature was constructed and composited into action shot on blue screen.

Which is exactly the way the Original Trilogy was done. Parts of Cloud City, the bridge of Darth Vader’s Super Star Destroyer, and rooms on both Death Stars were all partial sets filled out by matte paintings. In that sense, the Prequels are no different from the Original Trilogy.