About

"Sector Is Clear" is a phrase from the official trailer for the 2017 video game Star Wars: Battlefront II. The phrase gained popularity online, particularly in YouTube remixes and memes on YouTube and the /r/PrequelMemes subreddit.

Origin

On June 10th, 2017, during Electronic Arts' E3 press conference, a new trailer for the game Star Wars: Battlefront II premiered (shown below). The trailer features animated and gameplay footage of characters from the Star Wars prequel films engaging in military combat. At the 0:41 mark, a squad of Clone Troopers patrol the area. One trooper reports that the "sector is clear." Suddenly, the double-bladed lightsaber of Darth Maul flies through the squadron and the same trooper yells that the sector is "not clear" twice.

Within three days of being uploaded to YouTube, the trailer has received more than 6.3 million views.

Spread

On Reddit, Redditor R_MA posted the trailer in the /r/StarWarsBattleFront subreddit, where it received more than 4,700 points (88% upvoted) and 840 comments in two days.^[1] Following the showcase, the scene became a joke within the YouTube comment section of the video.

Shortly after the trailer appeared online, YouTuber Spyro uploaded a video that isolated (shown below) the "sector is clear moment" to YouTube, where it received more than 8,400 views in three days. They also posted it to the /r/Gaming^[2] subreddit.

That day, YouTube Revolver Ocelot uploaded a remix that replaced Darth Maul's lightsaber with fidget spinner (shown below, left). On June 11th, YouTuber Joydurn Yup posted a clip from Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith (shown below, right), when a Youngling kills several Clone Troopers, replacing the audio with the "sector is clear" dialogue.

That day, the /r/Gaming subreddit, Redditor Drew-P_Weiner^[3] posted an image of Darth Maul from the trailer in the thread "Guys who dress like this have a 125% chance of making sure your sector isn't clear." The post received more than 3,700 points (93% upvoted) and 50 comments.

That day, Redditor jakethemartin^[4] posted an image macro of the moment to the /r/PrequelMemes subreddit. The image (shown below) features an image of a Clone Trooper covering his head with the subtitled "sector not clear." Above the image is the caption "Mom: no more prequel memes, am I clear? Me:" The image received more than 1,600 points (99% upvoted) in two days.

On the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit, Redditors have made at least three different threads regarding the viability of Sector Is Clear memes.^[5][6][7]

Over the next several days, the meme settled into a specific, three-panel format. The first panel features the "sector is clear" image of the Clone Troopers patrolling, the 2nd image would represent the threat, and the third would be the "not clear" image of Clone Troopers in disarray (examples below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References