50 Greatest Star Wars Moments
10. Darth Maul Kills Qui-Gon Jin
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
Battling side by side, a young Obi-Wan Kenobi and his mentor, Qui-Gon Jin, face off against the sinister Darth Maul. They fight and fight, and eventually, cut off from the action, Obi-Wan must watch his master fight on. In the midst of battle, the red-and-black face of Maul finds a weak spot. He plunges his lightsaber in, and the strongest Jedi in the room is dead.
A star even by this point in his career, Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon adds an extra element of shock to the moment. Cinemagoers might have expected to see him last longer into the following films, even if they knew from the original films that he probably wasn’t going to make it all the way to the end of the third of the prequels, but to see this happen is a kick in the teeth. The helplessness of seeing Obi-Wan scream for his master, unable to do anything until moments later, compounds the misery. You feel it in your gut.
Perhaps this helps to explain (in retrospect, knowing the original film was released 22 years prior) the setup for Obi-Wan’s own passing in years to come. Facing against another of the emperor’s pawns (in this case, Darth Vader), with his own protégé in Luke Skywalker standing too far away to help, a sense of recognition and understanding comes over him on the Death Star. He has seen this scene before, and he must follow his own master into the beyond, into the force, completing the circle, as Qui-Gon Jin did all that time before. (KJ)
9. Rey and Kylo Ren vs The Praetorian Guards
Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi
Rey is brought before Supreme Leader Snoke, but, when ordered to kill her, dark apprentice Kylo Ren instead ignites Rey’s lightsaber through Snoke’s unsuspecting body. Having failed in their mission to protect their master, Snoke’s formidable Praetorian Guard attack in retribution and force the dark and light-siders to fight side by side to survive.
Lightsaber fights are usually one-on-one, but after shockingly killing off the sequel trilogy’s apparent big bad halfway through the second film, Rian Johnson mixed this up as well. Lightsabers drawn and differences temporarily put aside, Rey and Kylo stand back-to-back to fight off the guards wielding a variety of nasty energy-bladed weapons as they encircle them. The fight that follows is a thing of beauty to watch, with choreography filled with visually pleasing flourishes, surprising aggression and endless invention against the searing red throne room setting.
We’d never seen the goodies and baddies agree to a truce to face a more immediate threat (at least not outside Star Wars animation) and it’s immensely satisfying to have such a thrilling action scene and important show-don’t-tell character moment for our protagonist and antagonist immediately following the film’s biggest subversion. (SSP)
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8. The Rebel Alliance Take Down the Empire’s AT-ATs
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back
The Imperial forces engage the hidden rebel base on the frozen planet Hoth in a ground assault with hulking AT-AT walkers at their head. The death machines prove to be too heavily armoured for the rebel weapons to have any effect, until Luke Skywalker leads a counter-attack, using the tow cables on their Snow Speeders to loop around the war machines’ legs and bring them crashing down.
Unusually, The Empire Strikes Back has its big battle right at the beginning of the film, a battle that isn’t just two armies shooting at each other in the snow but beleaguered defenders against seemingly unstoppable metal behemoths. The Imperial Walkers were an instantly iconic piece of sci-fi design brought to life by superb stop-motion animation from Phil Tippett, and the wonderfully simple, playful way they are dispatched by the underdog rebels is something straight out of classic children’s adventure fiction.
Toppling the AT-ATs will always be a cheer-worthy moment early in a film where the good guys lose time and time again. (SSP)
7. Darth Vader’s Hallway Massacre
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is often regarded as the best of the Disney era films. With a compelling narrative, great action, little bits of fan-service, and a grounded feeling, it brings about one of the best finales of all the films, and one of the most heartbreaking. But then it adds in one extra little punch in the gut. Plans for the Death Star are aboard the escaping ships, and someone has to get it to Leia. Rebels run down the hallway to deliver the plans, but a door jams shut. The lights go out. Rebels turn and aim into the darkness behind them. Then there’s the breathing. A red lightsaber illuminates the outline of Darth Vader. It’s simply impossible not to feel a chill go down your spine as you realise that none of them are making it out alive.
How astonishing is it to realise that this scene, one of the most iconic in all of Star Wars, was a reshoot. It was added in because the producers felt there wasn’t enough Vader in the film. With minor key chanting from the choir behind it all, and frame-perfect direction by Gareth Edwards, the monster comes out of myth and legend to appear before the rebels who, for a second, had a new hope in their hearts. It would be like Dracula standing in your doorway with blood smeared across his face and no way out behind you.
Other moments in Star Wars have sent shivers down the spine, but there aren’t too many that give a feeling of complete, utter dread. And that’s even before he begins batting away blaster bolts with ease and carving a path through the bodies with glee. Once seen, never forgotten. (KJ)
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6. The Death Star Trench Run
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
It is the grand finale of the first film, and it all boils down to this: an attack on the Death Star base, the destroyer of worlds. The rebel fleet have found its weak spot thanks to the plans sent to Obi-Wan Kenobi, and they’re going for one all-out attack. Luke Skywalker is in the driver’s seat, going up against the Empire he wanted to sign up for until only days ago, and it’s high-speed action all the way, enemies on his tail, including the ever-malevolent Darth Vader.
For its time, this scene was eye-popping to say the least, and much of it still holds up today. With technology created almost purely for this assault, George Lucas and his team pulled out all the stops to create high-octane thrills that stay in the mind forever. Many of the shots might seem simple now (most of the pans going in the same direction, quite a few of the shots very simply put together), but that is part of the scene’s power. It is simple but effective, and when we add in the special effects, there is nothing much like it.
And it had to work. The whole film boiled down to this; a final attack, a big star-battle the likes of which had only really been put in badly-done B-movies. Now with great visuals and John Williams’ score behind it, big space battles became possible, with lasers shot in all directions, spaceships going down one after the other until it’s just Luke left. Ready to go without tech, to trust himself, to simply ‘Use the force, Luke.’ Deep in the trenches, hemmed in on all sides, tunnel-visioned quite literally, we’re pinned in our seats just like Luke, and it becomes cinematic spectacle at its finest. (KJ)
