Back when Star Wars: A New Hope originally came out in 1977, the duel between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader was electric and exciting. However, as more Star Wars films were released, times changed, and younger actors took up the mantles of Jedi and Sith, we’ve since come to see that original lightsaber battle as some pretty weak sauce.
Whereas Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker spend much of the prequels in frenetic lightsaber fights, flying all over the place and twirling their weapons with ease, their final fight now really does feel like a melee between two elderly people who are just trying to get through this. Especially with the addition of Vader’s epic hallway scene in Rogue One, which takes place just before the fight in A New Hope, it makes that duel all the more jarring.
Some Star Wars fans have tried to justify the slow duel as a chess match between two masters who know enough not to waste their energy when the other one will easily block it. However, we all know that’s just Monday morning Jedi-ing, as it were. Even with the addition of Obi-Wan’s rematch with Darth Maul in the Star Wars Rebels animated series, though it’s a short battle, it still shows off a keen physical quickness on Kenobi’s part that’s missing in the original film.
YouTube user FXitinPost, which does what the name suggests, is currently working on their own full-length revision of the scene to bring it up to speed, literally, with all the other lightsaber battles in the series. While they’re still working on this unofficial redo of the infamous scene, they’ve released a sneak peek that looks pretty damn solid.
Sure, you can tell it’s not actually Alec Guinness. But it’s still better than most of the prequel CGI.
Star Wars purists will gripe, but that certainly feels like it fits with the canon more than the actual fight. Who knows, if he still had control, George Lucas might have eventually gone back and done something like this, given his penchant for tinkering with the original trilogy.
It’s unlikely Disney will ever do so, so we’ll just have to wait and see the final product in order to get the full vision of what the final fight between these two masters should have looked like.
[Uproxx]
