The OBI-WAN KENOBI Lightsaber Battle Between Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen Had the Whole Crew Watching
So many Star Wars fans wish they could go back and be a fly on the wall when their favorite movie moments were made during the original trilogy, or even the prequel films. But the crew of the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi found themselves in the vicinity when Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) reunited with his former apprentice, Anakin-turned-Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen), and they couldn’t pass up the chance to see them go toe-to-toe in an epic lightsaber battle. I mean, who could?!
During last weekend’s Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London, the Obi-Wan Kenobi series panel was attended by Christensen and McGregor, as well as series director Deborah Chow, and they talked about the experience. Christensen explained:
"No, it was ... really a very special day. And, you know, everyone from the crew came out too, to watch and so it really was a sort of communal feeling to the whole thing and we just had a lot of fun, you know, we had enough practice with a lightsaber that we were just sort of able to enjoy it. And of course, we want to do it all ourselves because, you know, to get to swing a lightsaber is a privilege."
These two actors certainly didn’t take it lightly. And it wasn’t quite as easy as the last time they did it either! Chow noted that there are no stunt doubles in the scene, with McGregor doing "99% of everything himself" throughout the course of the series. For McGregor, filming the lightsaber sequence was a kind of homecoming, even if he had to work a bit harder than he used to:
"[It] was exciting to go to the fight gym to, to learn the fights. And then as we got ... them into our bones or under our skin ... they become faster and a bit more frenetic and fun, you know. And then to step back into that again, now like 20 years later, how[ever] many years later was just extraordinary. [...] So all of it ... was very thoughtfully designed and then to go back to the pre-, you know, to go back to this flashback, it was just ... it was the first thing we'd shot together."
McGregor went on to explain that he couldn't "rely on [his] youthful laziness from the first three" films, saying that shooting the fights is "kind of like a boxing match."
He pulled it off though, and that was one lucky crew that got to see it all unfold in person. If you could go back to any Star Wars moment in history and watch it all unfold, which moment would you choose?
via: /Film