A More Civilized Age - The Death Star: Obi-Wan Kenobi v Darth Vader

I suppose it makes sense to start a series about lightsaber duels in Star Wars with the first one ever depicted. The duel between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader on the Death Star in A New Hope is noteworthy to me for two main reasons. The first is that it isn't actually the climax of the film; the Battle of Yavin is. A New Hope is the first and so far only film in the main Star Wars saga where the big finale doesn't involve lightsabers. The second is that the protagonist of the film has nothing to do with it.

Luke Skywalker is given his father's lightsaber at the beginning of Episode IV and doesn't get to duel anyone with it until the end of Episode V (he then immediately drops it down a hole. I wonder if anyone was disappointed by that back in the day). The first and only duel in the original 1977 Star Wars film was between the main villain and the main character's mentor. In a way, this is fitting; it reminds us that lightsabers are a relic of a more civilized age that ended with the rise of the Empire rather than being the sort of thing that young people at the time ran around with. It adds to their mystique to see one being wielded by an elderly wizard rather than some young wipper-snapper farm boy. Speaking of which, the image of an elderly wizard in a brown robe duelling a big robot man with a laser sword in the middle of a metal sci-fi corridor perfectly sums up Star Wars and why I fucking love it. It's such an anachronism to have Obi-Wan Kenobi, a character straight out of traditional Tolkien fantasy, existing in that futuristic sci-fi environment that it totally sells the idea that the weapon he's holding is old and anachronistic too.

It's obvious from watching A New Hope in isolation that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader have some deep history together that started far before the opening crawl. However, if we look at things in the way that Lord Lucas intended, we're supposed to view the saga in numerical order rather than in production order. So, looking at Star Wars as a saga that starts with The Phantom Menace, the duel in A New Hope is structurally the last big prequel moment. The result of the duel, the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi, means something to Luke Skywalker and makes Vader seem more evil to the audience, but the actual relationship between Kenobi and Vader is its own little subplot left hanging from the end of the first trilogy that none of the new characters are in any way a part of. Clearly George Lucas had grand plans for this franchise from the very beginning in the way he weaved these generational stories together. In the lead up to the release of The Force Awakens I marathoned all of Star Wars watching two films a day, meaning for the first time I saw Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope back-to-back. Honestly, I highly recommend doing so as it greatly enhances the interactions between Kenobi and Vader in this duel. There's much more weight behind it and a sense of unfinished business, perhaps even guilt from Obi-Wan at putting Vader in the suit. It's also the last big prequel moment in the sense that it's the last time Obi-Wan plays an active role is trying to fix the mess his incarnation of the Jedi Order started. After his death (spoiler alert) his main concern is guiding Luke to help him avoid making the same mistakes.

So even though the fight is a big moment for the Star Wars saga, both in terms of story and in terms of introducing the tradition of the lightsaber duel, it isn't actually that relevant to the heroes of A New Hope beyond giving Luke an even more tragic backstory. Obi-Wan's ghost becomes important in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi but looking just at A New Hope, it's really more of a subplot. While our heroes all run around the Death Star fighting with modern blaster weapons like the gun films audiences at the time were used to, the two characters who are a carryover from a different era keep themselves busy with an old-fashioned sword fight. As well as combining the fantasy and sci-fi genres, this also helps to introduce another core theme in Star Wars: inheritance. The relationships between old and new, fathers and sons, masters and apprentices.

There's a sense in the duel and throughout the rest of the film that Obi-Wan Kenobi is what Luke Skywalker will one day become (and thanks to The Force Awakens, we know that this sense is absolutely correct). I think it's pretty significant that, of the four lightsabers we see in the Original Trilogy (Anakin's, Obi-Wan's, Vader's, and Luke's), Anakin's and Obi-Wan's are the only two that share a blade colour, and that Anakin's lightsaber is currently being carried by Luke. Then, after he drops Anakin's lightsaber down a hole, Luke reappears at the start of Return of the Jedi having constructed a brand new lightsaber with a green blade, unlike any lightsaber we'd seen previously, symbolising Luke's attempt to forge his own identity separate from that of his father. But even then the hilt of his green lightsaber is heavily based on Obi-Wan's hilt. Both of the lightsabers wielded by Luke Skywalker share similarities with Kenobi's.

On the subject of lightsaber colour, the duel on the first Death Star establishes a default setting for duels going forward: red versus blue. There are many exceptions to this rule (blue lightsabers don't appear at all in Return of the Jedi), but red representing absolute evil and blue representing absolute good is a strong theme throughout most fights. Obi-Wan and Anakin v Count Dooku, Obi-Wan v Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker v Darth Vader, Rey v Kylo Ren. The red/blue lightsaber combo certainly gets a lot more screen time than others, like red/green, blue/blue, or red/purple (by the way, I can't wait to talk about the Darth Sidious v Mace Windu duel later on, mainly so I can rant about my need for different lightsaber colours to be introduced to the series). It makes sense as an aesthetic choice: red and blue are from roughly different ends of the colour spectrum which makes for a vivid and easy-to-follow sword fight as well as representing the simplistic black-and-white way in which morality is presented in Star Wars. It does have the unfortunate effect of making it seem like all baddies have to have red lightsabers and all goodies have to have blue lightsabers, thus damaging the saga's potential for characters who exist in a moral grey area, but again that's a rant for a different entry in this series.

So I guess we should actually get into the fight itself. But before we talk about the combat, can we talk about the A+ banter for a second? "Only a master of evil, Darth!" is such an amazing line. I wish Star Wars had more unapologetically camp moments. The Disney era is sort of moving us back towards this with some of the moments of humour in The Force Awakens and the big punchy trailer-bait lines of dialogue in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and it's a good thing too. Star Wars is at its best when it's having fun. Incidentally, this is why I love it so much when the Star Wars fanfare is used during an episode at times other than at the very start, like when Luke escapes the sarlacc pit or when Rey is piloting the Falcon on Jakku. Unlike other motifs, the main Star Wars fanfare is recognisable even to people who've never seen Star Wars before and refers not to a character or concept but to the saga as a whole. Its use at any point in the film other than at the start marks a completely self-aware moment of pure fun.

Anyway, back to this duel. The choreography of the fight is obviously the weakest of any duel in the Original Trilogy given that it's a fight between an old man in a cumbersome robe and a man in a heavy and restrictive robot suit. No-matter how cool it looks when other people do it in later films, the decision to make Alec Guinness attempt a badass spin during the initial bout probably wasn't the best idea. There are moments where choppy editing and close-ups are used as a way to make the duel seem more dynamic, but there are also moments that seem as if this was a duel storyboarded for two much more athletic actors. In-universe, this is supposed to be an epic confrontation for the ages between two powerful force users, so you'd have thought the director (Lucas) and the choreographer could have made them look a little more...well, powerful. The fight looks incredibly awkward but I suppose for the first ever lightsaber duel, two people fighting with laser swords was all the scene needed to be visually interesting. Luckily, this confrontation is mainly about the drama between the two characters (and the A+ banter). Not that I'm trying to excuse the choreography though. It really is a bit crap.

The end of the fight, with Darth Vader striking Obi-Wan down so he can become more powerful that he can possibly imagine, is our first real indication that the force is about more than just superhuman reflexes. It's a moment along the same lines as Yoda pulling the X-wing out of the swamp on Dagobah or Kylo Ren stopping Poe's blaster bolt in midair but more weird and metaphysical than both - an "Oh shit!" moment that shows you just how potent the magic in this fantasy setting is. It's also sort of the moment when the iconic 'binary sunset theme' becomes 'the force theme'. What's interesting about Obi-Wan's death is that he clearly wanted it to happen. He knew that he would live on through the force and that his ghostliness would allow him to be of more help to Luke. So, given that he let himself be killed, did Vader really win? I mean...aye, he did, but would he still have won if the fight were allowed to continue? Who knows. Obi-Wan is obviously capable of beating Anakin in a duel considering that's why Anakin is in the robot suit to begin with. Speaking of which, it's interesting that Obi-Wan makes no attempt to turn Anakin back from the dark side here, and we later learn that he doesn't think it's even possible. Instead, it's Luke who succeeds in redeeming him. Based on that, I would assume Luke will try a similar trick when confronting Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi.

So: the first ever lightsaber duel. It's quite short, it doesn't involve any of the main heroes, the choreography is terrible, and the conclusion is ever so slightly unsatisfying in terms of declaring a definite winner. Regardless, it's undeniably an iconic moment in film history and it shaped the structure of all Star Wars movies to come. Future films elevate the lightsaber duel to being the climax of the story, transforming the encounters into an expected trope of the series. Lightsaber duels are about as expected as wilhelm screams, an opening crawl, and the phrase "I have a bad feeling about this." And if nothing else, this scene captured our imaginations by introducing us to lightsabers: the coolest gadgets in film.

Duel Ranking

1 - Episode IV - The Death Star: Obi-Wan Kenobi v Darth Vader

Reasoning

It's the only one I've written about so far, so for now it's simultaneously the best and the worst. I suspect it'll end up in the lower half of the overall ranking.

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