September 22, 2006
In honor of George Lucas releasing yet another set of Star Wars DVDs, I’ve got to get on my soapbox about Revenge of the Sith.
I loved the original three Star Wars movies (as any child of the ’70s/’80s would), and I never really saw Episodes I & II (just bits and pieces). But my Music Man and I did go to see Sith at the theater–after all, we did want to find out how Anakin became Darth Vader, and the flick got decent reviews. It was a compulsion.
This isn’t going to be a review about Sith, though. This is a rant about characterization. There were things about the movie that bothered me (unending battles to name one; sudden, unrealistic decisions to go to The Dark Side to name another), but the thing that left me with my jaw dropping, the thing I couldn’t understand and am still waiting for a reasonable explanation for, is what Obi Wan did at the end.
For three movies, we’ve seen Obi Wan mentor Anakin, take him under his wing. He’s like a young brother to him. They save each others’ lives, they fight side by side. Obi Wan is portrayed as the ultimately loyal, honorable man throughout all of the movies. The best friend, the mentor, the older brother, who always does the right thing.
Anakin turns to the Dark Side for what I consider pretty flimsy reasons (but that’s a debate for a different day), and Obi Wan is certainly horrified that he does, and reacts logically. He knows Anakin must be stopped–and rightly so. It’s a terrible thing he has to do, to destroy his dear friend, but it has to happen, for the good of all.
But it’s when we get to the battle on the lava-laden planet Mustafar that things go awry.
Obi Wan and Anakin fight ferociously and Anakin ends up falling in the burning pool. He’s armless and has stubs for legs. He’s burning as he drags himself out of the molten lava.
Obi Wan stands there, looking down at what is left of Anakin, who is no longer a threat to him or anyone else. In fact, the man is clearly in agony.
The honorable Obi Wan that I know would have done one last thing for his friend. He would have put him out of his misery.
But George Lucas doesn’t give him that. In those following moments, during that long speech Obi Wan delivers to Anakin about how he had loved him like a brother, and how saddened and angered he is by Anakin’s defection, Lucas strips Obi Wan of his honor and defiles his character. He ruins Obi Wan for me by making him do–or, in this case, not do–something out of character for this loyal man.
Why?
(And don’t tell me Obi Wan had to let him live so we could have the original three Star Wars movies–that’s bull-oney. There are many other ways he could have allowed Anakin to be saved; the most obvious was to let Obi Wan walk away and not see Anakin drag himself out of the lava. That would have accomplished the same thing without destroying Obi Wan’s character.)
So I guess my question is: was Obi Wan not really the man I always thought he was? Was this his true character, and all the time I was fooled into thinking he would always do the right thing?
Or is there an argument that he did do the right thing, by allowing Anakin to live on in agony, having no way of knowing that he would be rescued and rebuilt into Darth Vader?
The second installment of the Gardella Vampire Chronicles takes Victoria to Venice and Rome.
My novel, 
