Star Wars’ Darth Vader would lose to Obi-Wan’s Darth Vader in a fight

Pretty much everything about screen storytelling has changed since George Lucas made 1977’s Star Wars, or as it’s now known in the canon, A New Hope. The camera is smaller, more portable, and special effects are complex. Computers have changed every aspect of editing, color grading, sound design, shot selection, and even colour grading. These factors make fight choreography far more complex and difficult than 45 years ago. Take a look at Darth Vader versus his mentor Ben Kenobi. A New HopeThey will be facing each other in 2022 TV series Obi Wan Kenobi. Darth Vader, KenobiWould absolutely sweep the floor with A New Hope’s Vader, and it would take him about three seconds to do it.

Let’s be clear: This isn’t a Problem. This isn’t a Continuity errorThe continuity error is not the same as Kenobi’s being played by different men during that period. This isn’t a burning issue that should send loyal fans screaming to the internet. It’s just an observable fact that highlights how much has changed about on-screen combat (and about Star Wars) over the last four and a half decades.

You can see how big the Darth Vader takes up in space A New Hope takes up in the collective consciousness of American pop culture, given how terrifying audiences found him in 1977, it’s fascinating to go back and revisit the final lightsaber combat between Vader and Kenobi, and see how stiff, short, and minimal it is. Alec Guinness was 62 years old when the film was made. He looked much older than he actually was. Two amateur swordfighters on stage perform the delicate choreography necessary to win this duel. Each combatant does not use the Force to defeat their opponent.

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Because the stakes and drama were so high when the movie was first released in 1977, it felt nothing like a limitation. The dialogue between the two men makes it clear that they’re old rivals who used to be close, until a final breach divided them. Kenobi wants to make space for his younger friends, while possibly also teaching Anakin Skywalker a lesson about Force. (The context wasn’t as nuanced as it would become later in the series, but the idea was there even in 1977.) Besides, no one had ever seen a lightsaber duel between masters before — there was no reason to expect it to look like anything specific.

But today’s audiences have potentially seen a LotOver four decades Star Wars media, there have been many lightsaber battles. They are expecting something more exciting. This is the face-off of two identical men. Kenobi — less than a decade before their New Hope battle — happens on an entirely different scale. They smash through barren landscapes, creating earthquakes and landslides, and then the combatants smash into each other. The Force causes them to throw huge stones at one another. Kenobi uses the Force to spin, dive, and roll his way out of trouble. He flings Vader himself through the air to smash against stone, while Vader parries his opponent’s lightsaber with a hand gesture and his own sheer will. It’s a completely different kind of combat than the New Hope fight, one where the environment is as much a weapon and a defense as the combatants’ lightsabers.

Pop culture critics might complain that Kenobi and Vader both lost much of their skills during the relatively brief time span between them Obi Wan KenobiAnd A New Hope. A full-time continuity justifier can make many reasonable and rational arguments in support of the relatively small fight. Vader seems to be playing games with Kenobi. A New HopeHe held off on his attacks and tried to bring back the fear that his mentor used to feel for him. Kenobi, on the other hand, isn’t actually trying to kill Vader: He’s stalling for time for Luke and the Millennium Falcon crew, and moving the fight to a venue where it can be a distraction to enable their escape. The prequel series has provided a lens through which to see their fight. A New Hope can easily be seen less as two men trying to murder each other, and more as old frenemies carefully testing each other — until Kenobi consciously throws the fight.

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Or maybe Vader doesn’t want to wreck the Death Star by ripping it apart for improvised weapons. It’s worth noting that the Vader/Kenobi fight in the TV series is meant to serve as the show’s big action climax, and the payoff of all of its themes about hope and renewal, while their fight in A New Hope is just a small event leading up to the movie’s real climax — it takes place more than half an hour before the end of the movie. We can also all agree that fights set 45 years apart will look very different, particularly considering the challenges each sequel faces when trying to up the stakes. One fan-favorite film, which was shot in CG a few years ago, reimagined the fight from 1977 as if it had been shot today.

Star Wars does not like to say that 1977 Darth Vader is the most powerful Darth Vader. However, this could be argued from one point of view. The reasons are fully explained in the story. The Vader ofObi Wan Kenobi He’s still full of anger and conviction, especially towards Kenobi. He’s still out for revenge against Kenobi for dismembering him and abandoning him to slowly burn to death in a lava flow — a choice Star Wars media has never adequately or reasonably justified.

As of Kenobi, he still thinks he’s capable of getting that revenge. He displays his fury-driven Force abilities throughout Obi Wan Kenobi are above and beyond anything he does in the original trilogy, where he’s portrayed as calmer, far more in control of himself, and far more measured in using his abilities to awe, intimidate, or kill anyone who crosses or disappoints him. Nearly 20 years after Padmé’s death in Revenge of the SithHe seems to be more focused on Empire functions than personal griefs, which clearly shows that his anger and grief have settled.

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It is possible to argue that part of it can be explained by what happens inside. KenobiAt least, if you accept the Skywalker Saga’s coherent and consistent continuity rather than a collection of disconnected stories from various storytellers. Anakin might feel broken by Kenobi defeating Vader in a fight, and choosing to leave him alone to live could have forced him to focus on the future and away from his past. He seems to have abandoned his quest for Kenobi and instead devoted all of his energies to the Empire after that encounter. Obi Wan found it absurd to abandon Vader alive again. Kenobi’s actual storyline, and ham-handedly forced on the narrative by its nature as a prequel, is a whole different conversation.)

They will be reunited in the end. A New Hope, Vader still has plenty of contempt for his old teacher, but he’s smug and superior instead of furious in the way he once was. Although his combat sequence was inadmissible, Rogue One — which would take place not long before A New Hope — he’s back to flashier uses of the Force to slam his opponents around, and what seems like real anger when he’s stymied. But he still isn’t ripping the ship open around him. Perhaps that contempt and his underestimating Obi Wan Kenobi is what keeps him from moving forward so strongly. A New Hope.

There’s still the matter of Obi-Wan’s Darth Vader is a full-on rage machine at the peak of his powers, willing to rip anything and everything apart to destroy an enemy, while 1977 Vader comes across more like a dark diplomat, used to getting his way and only rarely having to fight for it. Star Wars could have gone multiverse like the MCU. These two villains faced off in combat. 1977 Vader may have more experience and age, while the Disney Plus Vader version is madder and more hungry, which gives him the ultimate edge.

What would happen if? A New Hope’s Kenobi came up against Obi Wan Kenobi’s Kenobi. These are more agile, faster and have greater Force-related skills. The older Kenobi might just speak something intelligible and disarming to his younger self. He still had much emotional growth ahead.

And then they’d probably go get some blue milk together. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed about screen stories since 1977: The heroes still tend to get creative about their conflicts, finding solutions that the villains would never consider.