72 pages. Full colour contents.
Egmont Books Ltd.
Edited by Jane Clempner.
Photo cover montage.
Back cover painting (uncredited).
ISBN-10: 0749856106
Contents:
2 Jedi Forces Photo montage endpaper.
4 Credits
5 Contents
6 Anakin full-color pin-up.
7 Attack of the Clones, part one, text story by Dan Whitehead.
16 Padme Amidala character bio.
17 Padme Amidala full-color pin-up.
18 Anakin Skywalker character bio.
19 Anakin Skywalker full-color pin-up.
20 Obi-Wan Kenobi character bio.
21 Obi-Wan Kenobi full-color pin-up.
22 Mace Windu Quiz
24 Attack of the Clones, part two, text story by Dan Whitehead.
32 Zam Wesell character bio.
33 Zam Wesell full-color pin-up.
34 Jango Fett character bio.
35 Jango Fett full-color pin-up.
36 Vehicles, part one, illustrated feature.
38 Mace Windu character bio.
39 Mace Windu full-color pin-up.
40 Count Dooku character bio.
41 Count Dooku full-color pin-up.
42 Attack of the Clones, part three, text story by Dan Whitehead.
50 Yoda Quiz
52 Vehicles, part two, illustrated feature.
54 Clone Trooper character bio and photos.
56 C-3PO & R2-D2 character bio and photos.
58 Attack of the Clones. part four, text story by Dan Whitehead.
68 Mace Windu's Answers
69 Yoda's Answers
70 Sith Forces Photo montage endpaper.
Whatever gains in originality which Star Wars made throughout the eighties and nineties, with novels, comic strips, and television cartoons providing new storytelling avenues, was brutally stripped back to the bone with marketing for the second trilogy. Retelling the films again and again and again, the characters were robbed of their vitality through tedious repetition, plot points painfully exposed with each incarnation. After the novelisation, the young reader novelisation, the comic adaptation, later packaged as a graphic novel, along with sundry promotional tie-ins, there was absolutely no need to reprise the story once more.
And yet, for reasons best known to Lucasfilm, here we are again.
Worse than pointless, this is only of value for the images from the film. If I want to refresh my memory of the film I'll watch it. The last thing I want to do is read yet another take on something which has become so familiar that I am able to recount lines of dialogue without a great deal of effort. It isn't, I hasten to add, Whitehead's fault - if someone was going to ply forth the tale for the umpteenth time, then he is as good as any to tackle the job, and he injects as much life into proceedings as he is able.
These types of annuals pose an interesting question, which should generate serious concerns in license holders - if this account of the film's narrative exists, then why would a reader bother with the film? It is, after all, the same narrative, and packaged alongside numerous images from the film. Serving as a perfectly reasonable alternative, it might provide more use than sitting through the film. It will certainly take less time to get through.
If adaptations, as a whole, are to survive the transition to print, then they must provide something which the film doesn't contain. What this annual desperately needed was additional scenes, alternative takes on what we get to see in the film, scenes taken from original characters' points of view, or expanding events to depict the consequences of events seen in the film. By rigidly adhering to the film there is only one conclusion:
This book is a complete waste of time.
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