C-3PO may be one of the most recognizable droids in Star Wars, but when he first appears in The Phantom Menace, he is still unfinished. Built by a young Anakin Skywalker from spare parts, Threepio lacks the completed plating and polished appearance he would later become famous for. When Anakin leaves Tatooine, C-3PO is clearly not finished yet. But by the time Anakin returns in Attack of the Clones, Threepio looks very different from the droid he left behind in Episode I. So if Anakin was gone all those years, who actually finished building C-3PO?
Shmi Skywalker Completed C-3PO Before She Married Cliegg Lars
According to the Attack of the Clones novelization, the person who finally completed C-3PO was Shmi Skywalker. When Anakin left Tatooine with the Jedi, Threepio was already fully functional, but he was still unfinished on the outside, with his wiring left exposed. Shmi kept him that way for a long time, holding onto the hope that Anakin might one day return and finish what he had started.
But that changed shortly before her marriage to Cliegg Lars. The novel explains that Shmi was the one who finally added C-3PO’s dull metal coverings herself, completing the droid at last. For her, it was an emotional moment, because it meant accepting that Anakin now belonged somewhere else, just as she did.
A Deleted Scene Once Had Padmé Complete C-3PO’s Coverings
Anthony Daniels later shared an interesting behind-the-scenes detail on his official website that adds another layer to this question. According to Daniels, Attack of the Clones originally included a scene in which Padmé, unable to sleep at the Lars homestead, found C-3PO alone in the garage. In that version of the story, Threepio explained that Anakin had been forced to leave Tatooine too quickly and never had the chance to finish giving him the coverings he was meant to have. Daniels described the droid as embarrassed by his unfinished state, even joking that Threepio saw himself as “naked” without the proper exterior plating. The scene then had Padmé discover a box of coverings and help complete him, ending with a fully assembled C-3PO.
But that version never made it into the finished film. Daniels explained that the sequence was ultimately cut, and it was not even included among the DVD’s deleted scenes. Because of that, the movie itself no longer presents Padmé as the one who completed C-3PO. Instead, once that moment was removed, the implication was left pointing elsewhere. As Daniels himself put it, “The inference is that it was Shmi who completed her son’s handiwork.” In other words, while the film at one point seems to have considered giving Padmé that role, the version that survived leaves Shmi as the one most strongly implied to have finished the work before Anakin returned years later.