O Hai

14.  Fave Fight THE MUSTAFAR FIGHT IS PURE PAIN AND DRAMATICS AND I LOVE IT THE MOST OF ANYTHING EVER If you’ve ever heard Nick Gillard talk about how he wrote the Mustafar fight, it’s heartbreaking:

And:  “My take on the whole duel was that Obi-Wan is the central character in that duel. He wouldn’t try and kill Anakin. The way I saw that fight was like having a fight with your girlfriend. That she’s just lost it and that she’s coming at you with everything she’s got. […] So you try to defend her as long as you can until she breaks down. Then you can give her a cuddle.“ The reason that fight endures even if special effects look more polished in other movies (though, considering it’s 15 years old, the movie is still gorgeous imo) is because this fight means EVERYTHING. It isn’t just about two Jedi at these incredible heights of their powers or that it was a triumph of choreography and effects, but that this was about everything these two characters couldn’t let continue and it was about the heartbreak of what they meant to each other. This is the climax of the prequels for a reason, that it was the culmination of all the movies, that it came down to these two characters who loved each other so much and it was all burnt to ash, just like everything else around them.  It was about two characters who were supposed to fight side by side, who had fought side by side, we saw them, we saw the way they were in sync with each other, we saw the way their fighters dipped and twirled like they were one, we saw the arcs of their lightsabers coming down on the droids in the elevator like twin images, we saw Anakin refusing to leave Obi-Wan behind, we saw Obi-Wan’s grin when he raced off with Anakin to spring the trap. This was a fight about Obi-Wan desperately trying to get Anakin to come back, that he wasn’t giving this his all because he wanted Anakin to stop and think, to come back out of the dark.  This was Anakin feeling like he had to turn on everyone who loved him because he had gotten lost in the dark and couldn’t admit the terrible things he’d done and was still doing, that they had to agree with him or they were against him, he couldn’t see beyond that and so forced them into these horrible situations. But it’s also a fight that’s about showing us how well these two characters know each other, that the fight just drags on and on and on because nobody knows each other the way these two know each other. They are complements to each other, torn into terrible jagged edged weapons against each other.