10 Best Costumes in the Star Wars Prequels

Star Wars‘s original trilogy was a massive hit, but it was to be almost twenty years before fans got more adventures from the galaxy far, far away. The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy was not as popular as its predecessors, but one can’t deny that Lucasfilm did their best to create a world just as varied and alive as the one they’d created before. The artists at the studio created whole new worlds and finally gave Star Wars fans glimpses of things that they had only imagined before. The movies had their problems, but the sheer amount of design work that went into these films needs to be respected. Much like the original trilogy, the Star Wars prequels showcased some amazing costumes.

The days of the Old Republic was a much more opulent time and it shows in the costumes that the characters wear. There are some amazing designs in the prequel trilogy, as the costume designers of Lucasfilm got to flex their muscles in ways they never could in the original trilogy. The prequels might not be better movies than the originals in the opinions of many, but an argument can be made that they have much better costumes.

Clonetrooper Armor from Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Clonetroopers were introduced in Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and the armor was pretty cool. It was a modification on what was seen in the original trilogy, with a rather different helmet and a more Mandalorian faceplate. It was shiny and new, and fans loved it. Then, Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith came along. We got new clonetrooper armor and it was far superior.

The helmet went in a more classic stormtrooper design, but kept the Mandalorian T-visor, which made the helmet look much fiercer and just generally better. The armor was decorated differently as well; Attack of the Clones clone armor had different colors, but they were more of a rank/service thing. In Revenge of the Sith, armor colors served to identify the different battalions and legions. The armor on the Utapau troops, the 501st armor, the red armor of Coruscant troopers, and the camouflage of the Kashyyyk clones all shared the same basic designs, but the different colors made them unique. They looked phenomenal, and showed just hot great trooper armor in Star Wars movies can be.

Senate Guard Armor

The Imperial Guards of the original trilogy looked wonderful. They were intimidating and fit the Imperial motif to a tee. We’d get to see their predecessors in Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace with the Senate Guards. Their design was quite similar — helmet and flowing robes in a single color — but they have an entirely different vibe than the Imperial Guards. Senate Guards still have the same effect on the psyche — the non-human silhouette and hidden limbs and torso is intimidating enough to get people to think twice about facing them — but they still feel like they belong in the Old Republic.

The reason why is the helmet. Instead of going with the closed helmet, which hid the identity of the guard, there’s the open visor. This humanizes the guard and makes them more approachable to civilians. The crest on the top plays into the more ostentatious side of the Old Republic, and gives them more of a royal feel. It’s a great design that fits the prequels to a tee.

Jango Fett’s Armor

Boba Fett’s armor made him one of the most popular characters in the original trilogy. His Mandalorian armor was beat up and a bit less armor than seems prudent, but it gave him a great design that grabbed moviegoers’ imagination. George Lucas decided that the prequels needed some of that Mandalorian flavor, so he brought in Boba’s father Jango Fett, who gave fans one of the best suits of Mandalorian armor ever, one that improved upon everything good about the Boba Fett armor.

To begin with, the burnished chrome armor plates with the blue highlights is a great choice of colors for Mandalorian armor. The suit’s colors look right together, and make the armor look cooler than the Boba Fett armor. Jango’s armor also looks like it’s better for combat than Boba Fett’s; there are more armor plates and they’re closer together. All in all, it’s an all-around better suit of armor; it has better colors and more plating.

Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Robes from Revenge of the Sith

Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi is one of those parts of the prequels that everyone agrees is awesome. The character looked pretty cool throughout the trilogy, usually wearing what can be thought of as standard Jedi clothes, but his costume was especially good in Revenge of the Sith. There was the standard dark brown Jedi robe, the beige belted tunic, and standard trousers and boots. It hearkened back to Luke Skywalker’s costume in Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope, but it looked of higher quality, which makes perfect sense.

The Jedi costumes aren’t really anything special, but Obi-Wan’s costume works perfectly for the character. He’s not Anakin; he wouldn’t wear something that was so different from his fellows. However, if he’s going to wear anything that’s “standard”, he’s going to make it look great. He’s going to follow the rules and not stand out, instead of proving to everyone with his actions that he’s the best of the best.

Nute Gunray’s Robes and Headpiece

The Neimoidians were introduced in Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace as something of a secondary antagonist. They were the commanders of the cannon fodder, but were still cannon fodder themselves on a different level. They ran the Trade Federation and had gotten very wealthy from it, so the leaders that we saw — in this case Nute Gunray and Rune Haako — had to look rich while still looking alien enough. Their costumes pulled that off, but Gunray’s was easily the superior of the two.

To begin with, there’s the color. The red robe draws the eye and looks fantastic. It doesn’t look heavy, so it looks good in motion, and allows Gunray’s actor to make big sweeping gestures, which helped in how the character was played. It has a necklace of office sort of thing going on, which is a subtle nod to Gunray being the leader. Finally, the headpiece feels more like a crown than Haako’s, which is more hatlike. All in all, Gunray’s costume fits who he is as a character and it looks great while doing it. Gunray’s subsequent costumes in the next two prequels are grave disappointments compared to what he premiered with.

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Darth Maul’s Robe and Clothes

Darth Maul is one of the prequels’ more popular characters, something that was basically inevitable. Maul’s tattoos and horns grabbed everyone’s attention, plus he’s a bad guy in a Star Wars movie, which means that he’s already definitely going to look cool. Of course, as a character, Maul was something of a disappointment, not coming into his own until Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels. However, he looked amazing right from the beginning, his design an example of less is more and a bit of visual storytelling.

Maul’s costume doesn’t have a lot of showy design flourishes. It’s the opposite of showy, which is the point. Maul isn’t a leader of the Trade Federation or a Senator. He’s not even a soldier. He’s a Sith assassin and the Sith have been in hiding for a thousand years. Instead of anything ostentatious, he’s chosen a simple set of black robe, tunic, and pants. It has the feeling of a karate gi, and it looks like someone took Jedi issue robes and clothes and dropped them into a pool of black dye. Maul looks like a martial artist from the moment we see him, and wears what an evil Jedi would wear. It’s a great design that does a lot with a little.

Count Dooku’s Outfit

Count Dooku was introduced to Star Wars fans as a Separatist leader and former Jedi, which gave them a bit of an idea of what he would dress would like. When Dooku finally appeared in screen, fans were treated to a costume that told them a lot about the character in a short amount time. Dooku’s clothes were those of someone used to wearing something simple enough to fight in, and wanted to look very good while doing it.

Dooku was born a noble on Serenno and took up his title again after leaving the Jedi Order. His clothes certainly have the look of something that a noble would wear. There’s a sense of how expensive and finely made they are. They held a sense of importance to them. The cape is a nice touch, as well; while every other Force user we’d seen in the prequels wore robes, Dooku’s cape said that he wasn’t the typical Force user. He no longer wore the robe of the Jedi, but he wasn’t trying to hide anything like the Sith we’d seen did. All in all, it’s a splendid costume.

Anakin Skywalker’s Clothes from Revenge of the Sith

Anakin Skywalker’s transformation to Darth Vader is a key part of the prequels. Much like the journey of his son Luke, George Lucas decided to make Anakin’s evolution a part of his wardrobe. So, in The Phantom Menace, young Anakin wore light colors. In Attack of the Clones, he wore something more complex and very different from what regular Padawans wore, that was a darker color than what he wore before. Finally, in Revenge of the Sith, Anakin graduated into a mostly black costume, one that showed how much the war and years of training from both the Jedi and the Sith had changed him as a character.

The costumes in Attack of the Clones and the one in Revenge of the Sith are quite similar in design and elements, but everything looks better in black. Anakin wanted something that looked finer than what he wore as a slave, which explains why his costume was so complex in comparison to the other Padawans, Knights, and Masters of the Jedi Order. Anakin didn’t even have to change his costume when he fell to the dark side; the costume looks as well for a hero as does it for a villain. It’s a great pit of costume design.

Emperor Palpatine’s Red Robes

Palpatine has some cool sets of robes in the prequels, but his best looks come after his accidentally giving himself a faceful of Force Lightning during the battle with Mace Windu. Palpatine had several sets of robes in Revenge of the Sith, but the coolest ones, the ones that looked the most like what the emperor of the galaxy should wear, are his red robes. These are best known from the scene where he announced his self-promotion to Emperor in front of the Senate, and are better seen in production images from Revenge of the Sith.

There are two tones of red in the robes; a lighter and darker blood red. The hood and cape section of the robes looked like it was made of heavy velvet and looked like it was worth a fortune. The front of the robes has several designs, ones that look vaguely snake-like and are very Sith. They are definitely more like something he would wear to a special occasion rather than every day wear, and they are Palpatine’s best look in all of the Star Wars movies he appears in.

All of Padme Amidala’s Costumes

Let’s be real for a moment — this entire list could have just been entries with Padme Amidala’s costumes. Instead of picking just one, they all deserve a shoutout. Some of them are better than others — all of the ones from The Phantom Menace are to die for, but her Queen outfit and the one she wore when she met Palpatine on Coruscant for the first time are especially good. Attack of the Clones has some bangers, including the dress she wore for dinner on Naboo with Anakin and the white outfit she wore in the end battles of the show. Revenge of the Sith also had some great costumes, fitting her role as a Senator and wife of a Jedi.

Anyone who doesn’t like Amidala’s costumes just doesn’t like film costumes. They’re all works of art, without a single one of them being anything less than awesome. These costumes took months to design and create, and do an amazing job of showing off who Padme is in the different movies. They are examples of the best costuming in Star Wars, and will go down in history as a tremendous achievement in movie costuming.