This sequence is probably my favorite thing in the entire prequel trilogy, and here is my non-exhaustive list explaining why.
1)
The editing. Have you ever noticed that everyone else’s conflict at
the end of this movie resolves before Obi-Wan’s? People can say
whatever they want about George Lucas and the prequels, but what a
superb editing decision – every other character is celebrating,
cheering; the viceroy is captured, the droid army is deactivated, and
then out of nowhere we cut to this:
And suddenly we remember oh, oh yeah, oh shit this is still happening; someone could still die right now, someone is
dying right now. Every other battle has wrapped up victoriously , and
people are celebrating, but Obi-Wan is still fighting for his life.
It’s
perfect, symbolically; it’s perfect, it’s correct, yes, that IS exactly
how it’s going to play out, every time – Obi-Wan will always be the
last of his kind, the last to go, the last to stop fighting, the last to
rest. The contrast between this scene and the one immediately
preceding it is so symbolically important, so predictive – while every
other major contingent in the film has emerged triumphant, whooping and
cheering, Obi-Wan Kenobi is crying; he is devastated and down on his knees.
I
see that contrast, and I just feel so…affected, because I know in many
ways that this is always going to be Obi-Wan’s life – always the last,
always the longest to struggle, always alone in the end.
I just don’t think those editing choices were accidents, and I love them so much.
2) The music. Not “Duel of the Fates,” though of course that one’s amazing – I’m talking about that moment,
the one where Obi-Wan is hanging by his fingers over the pit of Chaos
and looking straight up into Death’s face, up into Darkness – and,
specifically, the moment where he turns his face away from both those
hungry, vicious things. The moment when he turns his face back to his
teacher – to the blade on the floor – the moment when he sinks into the
Light, when he stops trying to do and just Does.
(1:50, guys, ONE FIFTY)
I’ve posted before about how much I love the fact that Obi-Wan and the Force share a musical theme – you know, that iconic horn solo?
That piece is known as both The Force Theme and Ben Kenobi’s Theme,
and this is the first time it ever plays for its namesake. At the
precise moment when he turns his face to the Light, when he recenters
himself and remembers his purpose, when he does the impossible and
vaults out of Chaos. At the exact moment of his Knighting. The minute
that horn kicks in, I just can’t handle it; I was a serious horn player
for years and it’s too mythically beautiful, too brilliant to be
allowed. (john williams please let me love you.)
3) The entire fight
sequence after the ray shield comes down. I mean, the combat, the
intensity of the thing. I do not know how to explain it, just that I’ve
seen this movie more times than I can count since I was eleven and this
fight still makes my heart race every time. There is nothing clever or
languid or confident about this; this isn’t Master Obi-Wan Kenobi
unhurriedly dispatching a squad of woefully underprepared battle droids.
This is a student – a brilliant student, yes, a prodigiously skilled
student, but a student still – pushed far beyond what any of his
teachers would have considered his limits, far beyond what he ever
imagined he could do. There is nothing refined about it. Obi-Wan
spends this entire fight racing about a half-step ahead of death’s snapping jaws.
Look at his face when he backs up, when he disengages for the briefest of instants. He is terrified.
He has no idea what he’s fighting right now; he’s never encountered
anything like this before in his life; and he can’t even begin to
process the implications of that because the only thought
screaming in his head is that he needs to end this thing
immediately, right now, because Qui-Gon, but the louder that
thought gets the harder it gets to focus, and the harder it gets to
focus the longer the fight drags on, and every lost second pushes him
deeper into a panic.
And yet even then – even then, look at
what he’s able to do. Look at what he can do with his saber, with his
feet. Look at how Obi-Wan lives up to what adults in the Temple have
been saying about him out of his earshot for years. This is the moment when
people’s respect for him transmutes into awe, because at twenty-five
years of age he defeats a Sith in single combat, managing to accomplish
what no other living Jedi has ever done, what no other living Jedi has
ever had occasion to do.
It’s important to me, that the
first exposed Sith in a millenia fall before a student. I don’t really
know how to explain how much I like this, how it feels like a dual
revelation – both a revelation of the Sith’s continued existence and a
revelation of the mark that Destiny has stamped onto Obi-Wan Kenobi’s
forehead. It’s the unprecedentedness, the idea that Obi-Wan has
accomplished something that by all rights ought to be impossible for
someone his age, the idea that Masters of the Order can look at the duel
Obi-Wan lived through and not be sure they could have done the same.
The clearly revealed will. YES. That’s what
I love about this duel. Anakin is the Chosen One, but Obi-Wan is
Chosen, too, to play a different role. And this is the moment when
other people realize it, the moment when the Force yanks off the veil
concealing its young student and declares clearly, indisputably, to everyone who
looks, ‘This one.‘ This one is marked. This one is mine.
4)
THE BARRIERS. The symbolism of the red gates. Do you understand, I
spent so many years asking myself, Galaxy Quest-style, “why are these
even here,” before finally discovering that yes, in fact, they were designed with a purpose, and that the explanation for their existence is way more incredible than I ever expected it would be.
On
religion:The Naboo thought Chaos was kept unreachable thanks to seven
impassable doors, and that is why seven laser gates were designed to
protect the pit of the Theed Generator Complex on Naboo. (x)
THE GATES – TO – CHAOS. Do you underSTAND, how appropriate – the pit, the pit is Chaos, and Obi-Wan almost – almost
– falls in. The void tries to swallow him whole. But at the last
moment, he lets the Force work through him, he surrenders himself to its
Will, and saves himself that way; he does the impossible, refuses to
roll over and die in the face of a smothering Dark, he vaults himself
out of Chaos and sails over his assailant like he does over every obstacle in
his life, over every future attempt to toss him once again into those
metaphorical depths.
He doesn’t earn his knighthood for
killing a Sith – he earns his knighthood for making it out of the pit.
He earns his knighthood for not Falling. For the moment when he
remembers everything everyone has ever told him about “there is no try”
and simply doeswhat he must.
5) The uhh…the other scene, you know, after this one, the sad one…BUT I ALREADY WROTE STUFF ABOUT THAT; I AM NOT DOING THAT PAIN AGAIN
6)
The implications. Because I am all about Obi-Wan and because I like
writing the young Obi-Wan and Anakin period, just, what does it all
mean? What doesn’t it mean, really? It means
Obi-Wan has to attend the funeral for the most important adult in his
life on some nowhere planet, in some nowhere system, nowhere near anyone
who can possibly understand, and that he gets to go home to stares, and
whispers, and an insufferable nickname, as well as the fact that
everyone around him seems to have heard everything about
everything even though supposedly no one has been told anything.
It means a constant stomach-churning sensation that nothing is private;
it means that when Bant finally asks if he wants to talk about what
happened he snaps at her and tells her what’s the point; everyone might as well have *been* there for the amount of discretion he’s seen
exercised on his behalf of late. It means an even more
stomach-churning sensation of guilt makes him apologize immediately,
profusely, because he feels terrible and everything is terrible and on
top of being (probably, he’s pretty sure) a terrible teacher, now he has to
go and be a terrible friend, and he doesn’t know why he can’t avoid even
these simple mistakes right now but he just feels so spent, and he
doesn’t know how to explain that to her in words. (Bant, being
Bant, doesn’t need him to.)
It means the conversation in this scene, in this location, carries a massively significant, unspoken layer of meaning.
It
means Obi-Wan barreling down hallways in Theed to intercept this fight
between Anakin and Dooku – afraid that he is going to be too slow, again – has a completely different context.
Most of all, it means I get a pretty incredible backdrop for all of the young
Anakin-young Obi-Wan stuff I want to write, which is in itself is worth a
lot.
And it……..also apparently means I have way too much meta to
write; PLEASE FORGIVE MY OVER-ENTHUSIASM, I just love this movie so
much, and this scene especially, and apparently the only incentive I
need in order to write up sixteen years of fangirling over it is one anonymous
message in my inbox.
SO HERE YOU GO FRIEND, I hope this satisfies. ❤
The Naboo thought Chaos was kept unreachable thanks to seven impassable doors…
It’s been over a decade and fandom is blow my mind up in here with new information and awesome character thoughts.
sparksoffandommagic 