there’s obviously a few distinct differences between the revenge of the sith film and the novelization—i.e., the novelization kept a lot of the scenes that were ultimately scrapped in the final cut + certain dialogue & action sequences don’t align perfectly with the film because of changes made to the script/in editing once the novelization went to publishing prior to the theatrical release. plus the novelization adds even more to the characters since you’re able to get inside of their heads and incorporate a level of detail that you just can’t in a two hour movie.
one difference that always stands out to me (which doesn’t get addressed in stover’s annotations in the deluxe edition, because he did note some of them!) happens during the scene on mustafar, after anakin has just strangled his heavily pregnant wife unconscious and obi-wan is trying to reason with him, even after everything, and of course gets nowhere.
in the film, obi-wan draws his lightsaber and ignites it first & anakin then responds in kind and makes the dramatic leap towards him:
however, in the novelization, there’s dialogue added to include obi-wan trying to convince anakin that padmé needs medical attention and anakin simply doesn’t care, he’s so lost in the dark side sauce and entirely wrapped up in himself and his own feelings (which does correspond with his attitude in the film 100%).
where it gets interesting to me though is that here, it’s anakin who pulls out his weapon first:
and i guess i just get stuck on that distinction a lot like, is this how it originally went down in the script stover got? was that something that got revised in the lucasflim editing room? or was it never in the script, and stover just had to assume that anakin would be the one to break out his lightsaber first—a completely logical assumption since we can see that anakin is currently operating at his maximum level of rage, aggression, hurt, sleep deprivation, dark side, etc?
regardless of whether it was anakin or obi-wan, i don’t think it would’ve altered the following sequence of events from either the watsonian or doylist perspective (in-universe “anakin is clearly ready to fight given how he flings off his cloak + he’s stalking around like a feral animal with his fucking crazy eyes + the whole 'don't make me kill you... if you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy’ speech” vs out-of-universe “obi-wan and anakin have to have a Big Messy Divorce™️ to fit within the narrative of the trilogy that came out thirty years ago sorry!”). it was going to happen either way; that's not the point this post is trying to make on a monday evening LOL.
it's the getting there that shifts ever so slightly... considering what nick gillard has said about how he wrote the mustafar fight—that obi-wan doesn’t want to kill anakin at all, he just wants to wear him out and bring him back—it does make me think that maybe they went in that direction for the film because while it’s a minor change in choreography, it is a significant difference in obi-wan and where he's placing his urgency. in the novelization he’s trying to negotiate with anakin and de-escalate until the very. last. second. when anakin brandishes his lightsaber and there’s no choice except to have a physical confrontation right now, but in the film—given the context of all the behind-the-scenes stuff that we know and if we think about it as a fight between a couple the way that it was written to be—it’s like obi-wan’s saying ‘you know what fine let’s just rip off the band-aid and get the ugly part over with so we can make up and get the hell out of here’.
idk. i just think they're neat. you know?
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