PT Anakin should have easily defeated Obi-Wan

You act like Obi-Wan can't jump/lunge or do anything Force related.

When Anakin lands he has a lightsaber, yes, but also little to no balance, and when Obi-Wan's lightsaber(yes, they both have lightsabers) meet's Anakin's, whom is still facing an adversary with more momentum and the higher ground, he's going right backwards into the lava.

 

I'm not saying jumping further up the bank was without risk. Just far less risk than leaping over Obi-Wan's head. How far did Anakin need to jump to make that work?? Even if he'd jumped further Obi-Wan could've just taken a couple of steps back & done the same thing. Jumping across but away from Obi-Wan was his best & probably only chance.

 

I don't know, I still think his best chance would be to not leave the platform and push his way further up the stream until he a more advantageous opportunity to strike arises. At least on the platform he forces Obi-Wan into a stalemate since Obi-Wan would not be able to go and attack him without losing a portion if not all of his advantage. At the end of the day it all comes down to Obi-Wan being calm and collected and having a firm understanding of the situation and his surroundings and Anakin being brash, cocky, and arrogant and thinking he was unbeatable.

 

Yes of course. But he was never going to retreat. He was going to attack & out of the two places to jump he chose the wrong one. Enjoy the black suit dummy

 

I think no matter what choice he makes at the end of the day he's enjoying that suit.

 

To further the discussion....why didn't Anakin just move the platform farther down the lava river, then jump from there, where Kenobi wasn't standing? Obvious answer was that Ob-Wan would follow, but if it's hard for Anakin to run on a slope, it would be the same for Kenobi, no?

Also,while part of Kenobi didn't want to hurt his friend, I've always believed he goaded Anakin into making that jump. He knew Anakin was out of control emotionally, and was always arrogant and convinced he was better and far more advanced than the rest of the Jedi. Kenobi telling Anakin that he had the advantage, and "Don't try it" was telling anakin he couldn't do something, knowing Anakin's response would be like " Screw you! I CAN jump higher than you!" . So as much aspeople look at it as a bad moment or a stupid moment, I look at it as absolutely brilliant strategy by Obi-Wan.

 

Anakin wouldn't be landing on hard ground, he'd be landing on what amounts to shifting, crumbling dirt and rocks. I'm not a scientist, but even I know that landing on unsteady terrain like that would be very difficult, and that's assuming Obi-Wan just stand there and lets him make the jump. Really, any way you slice it (pun intended), Anakin would be fighting Obi-Wan, the ground, and gravity because, as Obi-Wan said, he had the high ground.

 

Obi-Wan landed on the same surface & had no problem. Anything would've been better than summersaulting over his head.

 

So you all think the battle would first be decided for Anakin after he jumped from the moving platform?

You really think Obi Wan, a fuking good swordskilled Jedi, could hold 7 minutes against a legendary master swordsman?
Doesnt matter how crazy Anakin was at that point that is unrealistic. I think the director should have written that part different.
The director only choosed this cheap jump move because he did not knew another way to make Anakin lose this fight because he is so god like.

And besides, Anakin Force potential should be so high at this point he should be able to just force push Obi Wan 100m through the air into the lava without breaking any sweat.

 

I'm sorry, *legendary master swordsman*? Remind me again, who was the one who got carved up and left to become BBQ'd Jedi Beef on Mustafar? Obi-Wan more than held his own against Anakin. He BEAT him. All the power in the world can't help you if you use it like a deranged lunatic wielding a club. Should Anakin have had the clarity to jump anywhere BUT over Obi-Wan's head? Of course. But given what we know of Anakin, should that even be surprising to us that he'd do exactly that? The strategy of 'raw power and relentless clobbering of your opponent' only exists in stuff like Dragonball Z. Hell even in the show itself, Goku once said, "It takes more than brute strength to win a fight." He even critiqued it with certain villains whose powers were rapidly fading away because they couldn't control it.

This is where Anakin failed. He thought pure, raw strength could win him the fight. It could, but know what else wins a fight? Cunning, strategy, a clear, calculating head. To put it in DBZ terms, Anakin was Vegeta and Obi-Wan was Goku. One focused on pure strength to win the day. The other focused on cunning and strategy. Guess which one won the day?

 

Everything DarthLink says there is spot on. Mind you I agree with Xenor in that the fight wasn't resolved well IMO. Also give him points for such a "colorful" post.

 

Obi-Wan trained Anakin, he knows all his tricks and gimmicks. He knows what will work and what wont, as well as what to say and do. Anakin lost, the second Obi-wan survived.

 

Anakin could beat swordteacher Cin Drallig in the Jedi Temple.

Anakin is GOD.

I think the only ones who could fight Anakin on equal level were Mace Windu, Sidious and Yoda at that point.
The director should have made Obi-Wan stronger in the earlier movies than I would say yes Ok its believable but not THIS Obi-Wan NO WAY.

If you want to use DBZ I would say it like that:
Anakin is Freeza and Obi-Wan is Krillin. Doesnt matter how smart Krillin is he is still no match against such a force as Freeza.
Obi-Wan just doesnt come close to Anakins skill. Not in force power and not in sword technique.

 

It's easy to feel like a badass when you're facing down children, Padawans and Jedi masters reeling from the horror that the closest thing they've got to a messiah is trying to kill them all. He may have easily bested Cin Drallig, but he couldn't best Obi-Wan. Could the last part of the fight have gone differently so it didn't look like a convoluted way to end the duel? Sure, but I think the point here was that Obi-Wan knew all of Anakin's tricks and gimmicks. He trained the guy from childhood after all. It also helps that both couldn't really quite bring themselves to kill the other. Watch the duel, there are plenty of moments where the duel could've gone either way long before the lava river scene, but they held back. In Anakin's case, there's still that seed of "Um, what am I doing!?" inside. Y'know, the thing that would turn him back to the good side 23 years later. In Obi-Wan's case, as he said himself, he couldn't bring himself to kill the man he saw as a brother, a man he probably considered the closest thing he had to a son.

To continue the DBZ analogy, imagine Gohan becoming evil and fighting Piccolo after vaporizing an entire city. Gohan's exerting all his power, his rage on Piccolo but there is still that seed of "Um, what am I doing!?" That seed would be holding him back from outright obliterating Piccolo even if he were strong enough to do it. Same on Piccolo's end. This was his mentor, the closest thing Piccolo had to a brother, a comrade, a son. How could he bring himself to do what he'd know he'd have to do? How could he bring himself to kill Gohan? Even after all the latter did that would make his death necessary?

So what we have here is a Sith high on power and the Dark Side who wants and kind of doesn't want to kill Obi-Wan, using blind, raw, fury for his tactics. Obi-Wan knows he has to, but doesn't want to kill the man he saw as a brother figure. So he's on the defensive, making sure to keep ten steps ahead of Anakin, recalling all the training sessions he had with the boy. One of the junior novels even had Obi-Wan tell himself to pretend that this was just an extremely aggressive training exercise. He knows Anakin's moves, he knows what to expect.

But you're right on one account, the end of the fight should've been done differently so it made more sense.

 

Also Anakin had plenty of chances to defeat Obi-Wan before they got to the lava bank & he couldn't. If he was so much more powerful why didn't he take him out back in the control facility?

 

Or why didn't he kill Obi-Wan before he even stepped off the ramp to wax lyrical about absolutes? If so powerful Anakin is, why didn't he just grab Obi-Wan with the Force and chuck him into the lava?

 

Obi Wan's fighting was portrayed to be about as inconsistent as everything else in the prequels. His two wins against Sith were based on those Sith doing something incredibly stupid. His two losses against Dooku made it look as if he was useless in a light saber battle.

 

Have to agree with that.

 

I can't agree with you. I never got the impression that Obi-Wan was supposed to be the best or one of the top three lightsaber duelists in the Saga. He was lucky. Yes, he won against Maul because the latter got cocky and arrogant. And he won against Anakin, because the latter was in a state of emotional chaos. There was nothing inconsistent about that. That was just Lucas telling audiences that Obi-Wan was a very lucky man, whose luck ran out on the first Death Star.

Because Anakin was not being rational during their duel. I think the movie made that perfectly clear.


Is it possible that audiences expect all of the characters to always do the right or smart thing, all of the time?

 

I do wish Obi Wan would have been seen to give Dooku more of a challenge rather than him getting dominated so easily to suit the story.

 

he wasn't thinking clearly. he wanted to kill and he wasn't going to let kenobi tell him what to do. he could have jumped in a different direction but he wanted to show he was all powerful and he believed it as well. that's the point. hubris.

 

From the couple of references to Anakin as "God," I believe no explanation would prove acceptable to you. Even our real world "Gods" (#1 ranked athletes) lose at times; no one is invincible.

 

Would never happen but I'd love to see an alternate universe story where Anakin defeats Obi-Wan. Speculate: what happens next? What would Anakin do with Padme & the twins? Very strange scenario to think about.

 

SW has a lot of "what if"s like that

What if Qui-Gon had survived Maul?
What if Jango was taken alive and the secret behind the clone army was discovered?
What if the twins had died alongside Padme?
What if R2 was taken back by the Empire?
What if Luke listened to Yoda's advice?
What if the shield generator wasn't destroyed?

 

I have a lot of ideas for that one. I'm a big fan of Padmé/"Vader" AUs.

I honestly think he would go back to her and do something similar, take her to some medical facility. I don't think he'd hurt her any further once he'd calmed. I believe his anger was against Obi-Wan more than her. Especially after the dreams he had, I don't think he would be completely turned against her.

It's a very tough situation. I don't think he's as purely evil as he is confused and scared about Padmé's fate. I think he'd remember that he did it all for her. I don't think he would even try to hurt them again, but he would most certainly be volatile.

I can see Padmé leaving him and I can also see her staying and trying to turn him back. I think that would depend on the person writing the scenario.