In the Star Wars prequel trilogy's Attack of the Clones, George Lucas had to cover a lot of plot points before the animated show could take over.
Between Episodes II and III of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the Clone Wars took place. While the animated series chronicling this conflict wouldn’t begin airing until three years after the prequels wrapped up on the big screen, Attack of the Clones did a great job of setting the stage for the now-beloved cartoon.
By the end of Attack of the Clones, Yoda is ready to declare that “begun, the Clone War has,” but George Lucas had to get through a number of crucial plot points in the Republic’s conflict with the Separatists before the stage was set for the animated show to take over.
The most obvious way that Attack of the Clones set up the Clone Wars is the cloning of the Grand Army of the Republic. When Obi-Wan travels to Kamino, he stumbles across an army of 200,000 clones of Jango Fett with a million more on the way.
This army has mysterious origins, but it’s being primed to help the Jedi maintain peace in the galaxy. Yoda triumphantly arrives with the cavalry to save the Jedi on Geonosis, introducing the full force of the Republic’s new army.
After the Republic was widely accepted to be the governing body in charge of the galaxy in The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones introduced the Separatists, an anti-Republic movement led by ex-Jedi and current Palpatine apprentice Count Dooku.
When Obi-Wan spies on a meeting between various Separatist leaders, he sees that there are a bunch of corporations on Dooku’s side, including the Trade Federation. During this meeting, the Confederacy of Independent Systems is formed.
Before Obi-Wan is captured by Dooku, he picks up a lot of intelligence on the Separatists and their battle strategies, which he then relays to Yoda and Mace Windu in an intergalactic communication.
Primarily, Obi-Wan learns that the Separatists are building an army of battle droids to counter the Republic’s army of clone troopers. This intel, though limited, did give the Jedi a head-start in their war against the Separatists.
Jar Jar Binks’ role as the comic relief of the prequel trilogy was enough to irk most fans in The Phantom Menace, so it really didn’t help things that Jar Jar was integral in paving the way for Palpatine’s dictatorship in Attack of the Clones.
Jar Jar is the one who proposes giving emergency powers to Palpatine in order to allow him to raise an army without the interference of the Senate. Essentially, Jar Jar is to thank for the birth of the Empire.
The climactic set piece in Attack of the Clones, the Battle of Geonosis, is the first official battle in the Clone Wars. Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padmé are all captured by the Separatists and chained up in a gladiatorial arena to fight off monsters. They’re backed up by a Jedi strike force led by Mace Windu, but they’re no match for the Separatists’ vast army of droids.
Then, at the last second, Yoda arrives on a bunch of gunships with the Clone Army to save the surviving Jedi and drive the Separatists out of Geonosis.
In the Battle of Geonosis, Mace Windu lops off Jango Fett’s head with his lightsaber while Jango’s young son Boba is watching. This is crucial in setting up Boba’s arc in The Clone Wars — specifically, his disdain for the Jedi.
At the beginning of The Clone Wars, as a young bounty hunter, Boba was determined to exact revenge against Windu. Boba eventually grew up to become the leader of a bounty hunter squad.
The emotionally-charged final scene of Attack of the Clones, set to John Williams’ breathtaking “Across the Stars” love theme, sees Anakin defying Jedi protocols to marry Padmé in a secret wedding ceremony on Naboo.
Anakin and Padmé continued to keep their marriage a secret throughout The Clone Wars, although it’s heavily implied that Obi-Wan always knew about their relationship and kept it to himself because Padmé made his troubled apprentice happy.
When Count Dooku escapes from Geonosis at the end of Attack of the Clones, he takes the Death Star plans with him — revealed by the movie to have been designed by the Geonosians — and returns them to his master on Coruscant.
The Clone Wars were crucial in the formation of the Empire, as Palpatine used a war he created to give himself more political power, which eventually allowed him to turn the Republic into a dictatorship.
The Republic’s victory in the Battle of Geonosis at the end of Attack of the Clones led to the occupation of Geonosis — formerly a hub of Separatist activity — as the Republic’s first major campaign in the Clone Wars.
Sadly for the Republic, this occupation was short-lived, because the Separatists’ forces had reclaimed the system within a year.
The Grand Army of the Republic assembles on Coruscant at the end of Attack of the Clones, ready to go out into the galaxy and fight the Separatists for political control.
In one of the movie’s most memorable lines, Yoda declares the beginning of the conflict to his fellow Jedi Councilors: “Begun, the Clone War has.”
