The Duel on Mustafar, also known as the Battle on Mustafar, was a lightsaber duel where Anakin Skywalker, now the recently apprenticed Sith Lord, Darth Vader, fought his former Jedi Master and best friend, Obi-Wan Kenobi, on the planet Mustafar in the Outer Rim. After learning of Skywalker's downfall with Grand Master Yoda at the Jedi Temple, Kenobi arrived on Mustafar, where he attempted to reason with the fallen Jedi, not believing the Sith Master known as Darth Sidious, revealed to be Emperor Palpatine, had taken control of Skywalker's mind fully. However, Vader no longer cared for their friendship, and quickly claimed that Kenobi was his enemy; the pair then ignited their lightsabers and locked blades, fighting through the murder scene in the Klegger Corp Mining Facility, where Vader had recently slaughtered the members of the Separatist Council, the leadership body of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
The fight progressed on the structures of the massive facility that hovered over the deadly lava of Mustafar. Kenobi and Vader soon found themselves trapped on a structure collection arm connected on the facility when it was separated from the facility by the lava and descended onto a hot stream. Kenobi managed to fall onto a lava skiff that was heading in the opposite direction of the fallen collection arm in the stream. Vader soon followed Kenobi and jumped onto a droid collector where the two continued to fight. The Jedi managed to jump onto a high lava bend slope, and claimed that the duel was over due to his height advantage. The Sith Lord attempted to follow, but in his hubris, Vader failed to block Kenobi's final attack, a powerful maneuver which Kenobi severed Vader's remaining organic limbs, and Vader rolled down to the edge of the lava bend, bringing the duel to an end.
Then, Kenobi—overcome with disgust and remorse over his friend's transformation—cried out that he had believed that the fallen Jedi was the Chosen One and his destiny was to destroy the Sith, but instead he joined them. Unable, but most likely unwilling, to connect with his former best friend, Vader was consumed by the fires of the lava that leaked onto the lava bend; leaving the Sith Lord to die, Kenobi retreated and took his fallen apprentice's lightsaber. Afterwards, Vader's new master, Darth Sidious, found his injured apprentice and took him back to the galactic capital of Coruscant, now known as Imperial Center, to be rebuilt; the suit that Vader donned there was one that the Dark Lord of the Sith would wear for the rest of his life.
The Chosen One Anakin Skywalker foresaw his future, but the premonition was soon erased from his memory.
During the Clone Wars, a trio of Jedi—Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and Ahsoka Tano—were brought to the realm of Mortis by a group of Force wielders who dwelled there. These beings believed that Skywalker was the Chosen One who would one day bring balance to the Force and destroy the Sith. One of the beings, the Son—a representation of the dark side of the Force—showed Skywalker a vision. In the vision, Skywalker witnessed events of his future, including the Jedi Knight's future as Darth Vader, a Dark Lord of the Sith, where he helped destroy the Jedi and the Sith rule the galaxy. Skywalker briefly turned to the dark side as a result of the vision, but he gave up the dark side and his memory of his future was erased by the Father.
Having turned to the dark side, the former Anakin Skywalker attacked his pregnant wife, Padmé Amidala in anger.
The duel began after the Sith Master known as Darth Sidious, as the newly appointed Galactic Emperor Sheev Palpatine, tasked Skywalker, now a fallen Jedi serving as his new apprentice Darth Vader, with the assassination of the leaders of the Confederacy of Independent Systems on the volcanic Outer Rim planet Mustafar, in order to bring an end to the Clone Wars. After arriving with R2-D2 aboard his Actis-class interceptor, Vader was followed to Mustafar by his wife, Senator Padmé Amidala, where he implied to her his designs to take over the Empire, saying he could overthrow Emperor Palpatine, and that he and she could rule the galaxy together, but the senator rejected this offer saying she can't believe what he is doing. He Force-choked her after seeing Obi-Wan Kenobi, his former Jedi Master, whom Vader wrongly believed that Amidala had led to Mustafar in order to kill him after she discovered that Obi-Wan was right about Vader.
Obi-Wan himself convinced Vader to release Amidala and, not wanting to have to kill his former Padawan, briefly tried to bring him to his senses. When it became clear that Vader was unwilling to listen to reason, Obi-Wan reluctantly raised his lightsaber, prompting Vader to respond in kind.
The duel between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader was a fight between former friends who became sworn enemies.
The lightsaber duel between Kenobi and Vader was lengthy and brutal with neither of the combatants gaining the edge as their abilities countered each other's; thanks to their partnership from years of working together, both could effectively read the other's mind, as they could predict each other's actions. In the end, Kenobi used all his strength to triumph over his former Padawan.
The duel took place across the Klegger Corp Mining Facility, with the two combatants making their way through hallways, conference rooms, and command centers, the last of which led to their inadvertently triggering a meltdown of the facility when their misdirected weapons cut across a control panel. As a result, the facility's shielding deactivated, and the large stalks overhanging the lava river collapsed when covered with erupting lava, with one of the stalks taking the two Jedi with it.
Kenobi and Vader continued to fight on the collection arm as it floated down a lava river, but when they came to a lava fall, Kenobi leapt off onto one of the mining platforms floating above the river. Thinking Vader dead, he turned to find the Sith Lord perched on a lava mining droid, having leapt from the structure before it plunged to oblivion. As their fight continued they floated back upriver, continuing to exchange verbal barbs. Kenobi desperately tried to convince Vader of Palpatine's evil, but when Vader retorted the Jedi were evil, Kenobi bellowed that his old student and friend was beyond redemption.
Defeated by his former master, Vader was left to burn in the lava and fire of Mustafar.
The fight moved back up river—before ending on a nearby embankment where Obi-Wan leaped, gaining the high ground. He begged Vader not to attack, but Vader, in his anger, refused to listen and attacked, to no avail as his left arm and both legs were severed upon attack.
Following an impassioned indictment by Kenobi of how Vader, believed to have been the Chosen One and meant to destroy the Sith instead of joining them, Vader's body burst into flames from the intense heat from the lava river, and he was burned alive. Unwilling to finish his defenseless enemy, Kenobi took Vader's lightsaber and remorsefully left him on the embankment for dead, before leaving the planet with the dying Amidala. Kenobi was left with the belief that his former Padawan succumbed to his injuries and died, and R2-D2 also believed his master had perished.
Vader survived his injuries, but was forced to live in a suit of armor for the rest of his life.
Sidious sensed his apprentice's initial struggle from across the galaxy and personally traveled to Mustafar to retrieve him. Unknown to Kenobi nor R2-D2, Vader, barely, survived his ordeal, dragging himself away from the lava bank before Sidious found him. The newly christened Emperor then brought Vader back to Coruscant, where he placed his badly wounded apprentice into a cybernetic suit of armor that would keep him alive for the rest of his life before Vader learned that he killed his wife in anger.
Kenobi, meanwhile, brought Amidala to Polis Massa, where she died shortly after giving birth to her and Anakin's twin children, Luke and Leia. To protect them from the Sith sensing their presence, it was decided the twins be separated. Senator Bail Organa adopted Leia while Kenobi delivered Luke to his former apprentice's stepbrother, Owen Lars, and his wife, Beru, on Tatooine. Vader later established his personal fortress on Mustafar in large part due to its connection to his rebirth as a Sith Lord.
Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader have their second duel after 10 years.
To watch over Luke, Kenobi went into exile on the same planet, where he took on a new name: Ben Kenobi. He managed to learn of the Inquisitorius, a group of corrupted Jedi who helped the Empire hunt down survivors of Order 66, but Vader's survival eluded Kenobi until ten years had passed since their duel; when he needed to leave Tatooine at the request of Organa to save Leia on the planet Daiyu, Kenobi found that the kidnapping of Leia Organa had been arranged by the Inquisitor known as the Third Sister, who hoped to bring him before Vader to earn the Sith Lord's praise. Kenobi was petrified upon learning Vader had survived their ordeal, remaining at a loss for words until he muttered Skywalker's first name as he escaped Daiyu with Leia. Afterward, when Kenobi and Organa made their way to the mining world of Mapuzo, Vader himself arrived with the Inquisitors and Imperial Army to finally have his long-sought after rematch with his old mentor.
Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi duel once more.
Vader won the duel but elected to torture Kenobi instead of simply killing him, burning him before he was taken to safety by members of the Hidden Path. After Kenobi's wounds were healed and Vader failed to catch him during the attack on Jabiim, the two had another duel on a barren moon that Kenobi triumphed in. When the injured Vader declared that it was he who destroyed Anakin Skywalker, Kenobi bid the Sith Lord farewell with the belief that the man he had seen as a brother was truly gone. Afterward, Organa was returned home to the planet Alderaan, where Kenobi told her that he indeed knew her birth parents but referred to them both in the past tense. On Mustafar, Sidious made Vader declare that his former Jedi Master meant nothing to him to ensure his apprentice could overcome his past, but Vader still displayed a thirst to find Kenobi once more.
Kenobi duels with his former friend for the last time.
The final encounter between Kenobi and Vader took place on the first Death Star during the Galactic Civil War to rescue Princess Organa, where Kenobi warned the Dark Lord that he could not win, and striking him down would only make him more powerful. Vader angled his blade upwards before declaring Kenobi should never have returned from exile. Kenobi glance into the hangar, where he saw Skywalker. He turned to Vader, smiled wryly, and raised his lightsaber. Vader slashed at Kenobi's but he had vanished, having become one with the Force.
During the Battle of Endor, Anakin found redemption, inspired by his son Luke, sacrificing himself by killing Sidious before rejoining Kenobi and Yoda in the Force as a spirit. Between 4 ABY and 5 ABY, Skywalker's Force spirit appeared on Mustafar to rescue those trapped in his former castle. That crew left Vader's servant Vaneé, who thought he was hearing the voice of his fallen master due to Mustarian lava fumes, trapped in the castle, hallucinating Vader coming for him.
A confrontation between Obi-Wan and Vader was first mentioned indirectly in the original 1977 film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. The origins of a duel are hinted at in to the original trilogy, such as the conversation between Kenobi and Vader aboard the Death Star, Vader's numerous scars, Obi-wan's comments that Vader was more machine than man, and Vader's remarks that Obi-wan once thought like Luke did. The origins of the duel date back to at least 1977, George Lucas told Rolling Stone magazine in a 1977 interview that "Vader kills Luke's father, then Ben and Vader have a confrontation, just like they have in Star Wars, and Ben almost kills Vader. As a matter of fact, he falls into a volcanic pit and gets fried and is one destroyed being."
The official novelization for Return of the Jedi includes passages where Obi-wan tells Luke that Anakin fell into a pit of lava, clawing his way back out as Darth Vader; and includes a moment where Vader remembers the feeling of molten lava crawling up his back and he equates Luke's unconditional love as pulling him back from that pit. Reference materials produced in the wake of the original trilogy, such as 1994's Star Wars Screen Entertainment and 1997's The Galactic Empire Scrapbook, also alluded to the pair dueling alongside a "volcano" with Obi-Wan being able to "back Anakin into an open pit of molten lava." These versions of the events were slightly reworked and later retconned by the prequel trilogy when the lava-filled duel between Obi-Wan and Vader appeared on-screen in the 2005 film Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. However by then, it had already become a highly anticipated event in Star Wars fandom.
The duel took George Lucas nearly two weeks to complete, and only took up half of a page. During the animatics stage, Steven Spielberg, Lucas' friend and a renowned Hollywood filmmaker, participated in the duel's production. Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen, who played Obi-Wan and Anakin, practiced the duel constantly for several months. As a result, the speed in which Vader and Kenobi engage the duel in the completed film is the speed in which it was filmed, without being digitally accelerated. Lucas named the duel during an interview in the documentary Within a Minute: The Making of Episode III.
In the DVD commentary of Episode III, George Lucas pointed out that during the scene in which Vader chokes Obi-Wan, the latter is holding the former's lightsaber, because Obi-Wan was at one point going to take Vader's blade, and shots for this were filmed but edited out of the final cut for pacing reasons.
As seen in The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, concept art by Sang Jun Lee shows that Kenobi and Skywalker were originally intended to fight a being known as the Mustafar Monster while having the duel. This idea was scrapped by the finished version of the film. Additionally, Vader was meant to beg Kenobi for help, reaching out for him, but Kenobi, while acknowledging he loved him and initially thinking he should help him, refuses to help, with Anakin's eyes turning from blue to the trademark yellow of the Sith.
Before the duel, Vader tells Kenobi, "If you are not with me, then you are my enemy!" Kenobi responds with "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." George Lucas intended for this line to reflect what he believed to be the viewers' views on US President George W. Bush's "War on Terror," particularly Bush's "black-and-white" views of the world.
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