.If you are unfamiliar with the Star Wars phenomenon, please refer to the official StarWars.com Web site or to other links below. "Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones and The Fictional World of Archives" assumes a passing familiarity with this filmmaking benchmark of late 20th and early 21st centuries popular culture. Archivists and librarians will argue over whether Jocasta Nu is a librarian or an archivist, but Episode II (Attack of the Clones) places her in the Jedi Archives. Of course in the unnamed galaxy far, far away, such distinctions between classes of information such as we maintain on Earth in the 21st century may be meaningless.
The Jedi Archives and a Jedi Archivist/Librarian form part of the plot in the second Star Wars episode. The Jedi Archivist is Madame Jocasta Nu (Alethea McGrath). See the link to StarWars.com: Ask the LucasFilm Jedi Council for a photograph of the character. Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) is attempting to locate the planet Kamino referred to him by Dexter Jettster, a jovial greasy spoon cook of the Besalisk species or a planet of that name. When he searches the star charts in the automoated Jedi Archives, the planet does not appear where it is supposed to be located. Jocasta Nu, seeing his puzzlement, offers to assist. She concludes, erroneously, that if the planet is not found in the archives it does not exist.
Not to be dissuaded by her brushoff, he consults with Yoda who is busy training a group of young pre-Padawan (Jedi apprentices). One of the children volunteers that perhaps the information was erased from the archives. Obi-Wan is even more puzzled: how can this be? Yoda agrees, only a Jedi can erase or alter a record in the archives, but why was this done. Although the question is never directly resolved, it was probably Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (aka Darth Sidious, played by (Ian McDiarmid) who erased the record.
Near the end of the film, when Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) and a group of Jedi come to rescue of Obi-Wan, Senator Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) and Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), the evil Count Dooku (aka Darth Tyranus, played by Christopher Lee) congratulates the band on a battle well fought, worthy of a mention in the archives.
Additional details about the Jedi Archives and the recording technology, the holocron and holobooks, used by the Sith, the anti-Jedi Order, and the Jedi to preserve their knowledge are found in David West Reynolds' Star Wars: Attack of the Clones: The Visual Dictionary.
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Fictional World of Archives
Submitted by David Mattison, 2002.05.26. Updated 2004.08.21.