Anakin Skywalker, You Dramatic Son of a Gun

Darth Vader is Star Wars ’ ultimate scoundrel . We ’ve always known that , but the revived epoch of the franchisehas dug deepinto Vader as a eccentric beyond his iconography to re - establish why we ’re fascinated with him , why we ’re so frightened of him , and why we at long last invest in him . Obi - Wan Kenobi understands this in recall Hayden Christensen under Vader ’s masquerade party , but also crucially infer something just as of import : Anakin Skywalker is the extragalactic nebula far , far away’spettiest dramatic play queen .

The third chapterof Obi - Wan Kenobi delivers a minute buff have been waiting for ever since an Obi - Wan Kenobi series was first confirmed : a decade before they would fatefully clash on the Death Star in A New Hope , Obi - Wan and the fallen Anakin Skywalker — now garb in the armour of a Dark Lord of the Sith — locked sabers in revulsion and anguish , as the formerlearned the verity ofhis comrade - in - branch ’ survival after Mustafar . This may not have been the epic duel that some fans wanted of this muscular reunification . An abandoned quarry on the new mining planet Mapuzo is hardly , perhaps , quite as visually dramatic as the slag and liquified hot rivers of Mustafar ’s fiery shore . And yet , Obi - Wan Kenobi still hits all the beats you ’d desire , if this pre - ANH conflict must survive between the two former Jedi .

Vader stalks the dark , less the unstoppable object we see in Rogue One ’s hallway scene and more a slinking shadow , play up on the absolute terror Obi - Wan feels in coming face - to - mask with his fallen apprentice . Vader teases , he swap his lightsaber on and off only to excise in moments of surprisal between dirt voltaic pile before their duel really begins . Obi - Wan , so compromise by his emotions , can scarce suffer up , let alone match the brutal assault Vader unleash upon him when the hunter decides to bend on the hunted . It ’s not really a duel , but a sloughy beating as Vader strikes , and strikes , and come across again . This is the Darth Vader that Star Wars fans idealized across generation of nostalgia for the original trilogy : the ultimate iniquity , the threat and the force , the Big Badass .

Alright Anakin, we get it, calm down.

Alright Anakin, we get it, calm down.Screenshot: Lucasfilm

But Obi - Wan Kenobi ’s nostalgia is not really for the original Star Wars . It is a reflection of therenewed bosom of the prequels , and with it , the recognition that behind Vader ’s masque — metatextually or otherwise — is the Anakin Skywalker that both Hayden Christensen and Matt Lanter have brought to life across those movies , and then Clone Wars as it in number carry on their bequest . The Darth Vader of Obi - Wan Kenobi can not be just this reflexion of the idealized original trilogy Vader we hold in our head , he has to also be Anakin Skywalker . Which mean one thing above all — remembering that the Chosen One waspetty as all hell .

And it does indeed call up . From the moment Vader enters the picture on Mapuzo , the panic of that masked image is presented in tandem with a throughline of dramatic excess that is so exhaustively the cocky bragadoccio of the prequel saga ’s Anakin . The cruel performance of nonchalantly snapping neck and sweep up villagers around with the Force to coax Obi - Wan out , the staginess in the stone pit hunting Obi - Wan , even the dewy-eyed deed that Vader , in a rare sight from what we see of him in the motion-picture show , is nonchalantly , single - handedly bat away Obi - Wan ’s lightsaber when he strikes in their struggle . Anakin Skywalker is in all these little moments , deep down , because it ’s a execution . He is wait in the eye of his former master and showing him what he has become , the man he could always be , and savor every instant . Because at this detail , even if you ’ve not read the comics where this ismade explicitly obvious — there ’s more than enough in the text of the moving-picture show and Clone Wars alone to make it obvious , really — but what is more Anakin Skywalker than holding amoody , bitter score ?

Throughout the prequels and Clone Wars , we see him do this in way grand and small , from his petty tête - à - têtes with Dooku and Grievous , to shape like Padmé ’s former lover Rush Clovis . Anakin love a prospect to shew himself the arriviste , and has the confidence and exponent to do so , and we see him coddle that side of him across those picture show and that show over and over . So it ’s fitting that Obi - Wan Kenobi culminate its own Battle of the Heroes with an enactment that is over - the - top and spectacular as hell too . In a moment of opportunity , Vader contain a Force - grappled Obi - Wan over a confused container of fuel watch glass , and calmly bring down himself just enough so that his lightsaber can set them all alight . “ Now you will suffer , Obi - Wan , ” Vader growl , with almost a rare sense of gratification seeping through his part . “ Your painfulness has just begun ! ”

Screenshot: Lucasfilm

fling Obi - Wan down to drag out him through the flame , Vader watches just as Obi - Wan did when Anakin burst into fervency and unleash agonizing screech on the shore of Mustafar . There ’s is some of that George Lucas - isan rhyme poetry here , of course , to see this affaire d’honneur sexual climax as their prior brush did . But it ’s as much emblematic of the kind of person Anakin always was — this man of such power that still could n’t serve but pamper his bravado witha quip hereand a comeupance there , a never-ending grudge holder always eager to cash that dramatic check — as it is evocative of Star Wars ’ love of poetic echoes . It is , just as much fabric exploring Vader in the Disney era of the franchise has been , a wonderful enmeshing of the Vader we have in our mind ’s eye from the original movie , and the Anakin Skywalker we met , and then lovingly memed on , in the prequel geological era .

As equally horrible as it is peckish , it is the Vader moment that Obi - Wan Kenobi needed to give us perhaps more than any affaire d’honneur or spruce line , a chosen one bringing counterbalance to the duality of Anakin Skywalker on screen as has been brought to the stem in book and comic strip . It ’s perhaps why , as the episode ends , we almost have an answer as to why Vader would simply lease his prey go momentarily — he has had his second of scrumptious , spectacular revenge , and does n’t actually postulate more of his former overlord for now . And who are we to deny that to a petty Sith who live for dramatic play ?

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Screenshot: Lucasfilm