A Thousand Stars: Episode II, Part 41

[matril]

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate... Anakin, terrified for Padmé, channels that fear into a rash and heedless attack on Dooku. It does not go well.


It's interesting that Dooku generates the lightning one-handed, in contrast to Palpatine's style. It feels almost casual, less personal. Still brutal though. See how he literally flings Anakin around into the wall.



And then Anakin is rendered as helpless as they left Padmé. His anger has brought him no victory.



Obi-Wan has a little more success with some creative lightsaber usage.


(As for those complaints that Luke should have kept his lightsaber to protect himself from the Emperor, bah. It's not a battle for supremacy; it's a battle for Luke's soul -- and then for Anakin's. But we'll get to that later.)

Still, Dooku gets the upper hand, and he's on the verge of delivering the killing blow when --



Does this image remind you of anything? Yup, the same crossed-blades in front of Palaptine's cackling face. The contrast is significant here. Obi-Wan is truly vulnerable, not glorying in this. The blades are almost out of frame rather than centered. Anakin's block was a desperate last-minute lunge, not a confident inevitable action. His saber is the green one, not the red. Yet the similarities are striking. Anakin intervenes to protect his master.

Next time, a shadow play....

Comments

[krpalmer]

One thing tucked in between your moments here I recall catching my attention before is that Anakin rousing from his lightning-blasted state is crosscut with Padme rousing on the desert sand. I might have been intent on linking it up with "Anakin and Padme seem enigmatically connected in Episode III," but that's another thing to get to later... I've also been struck by Dooku's smile as he overpowers Obi-Wan just before inflicting his surgical injuries.