Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith is my favorite Star Wars movie, but I’ve been completely misunderstanding this crucial Revenge of the Sith scene for 20 years. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Revenge of the Sith, and this movie has only become more important to Star Wars movies and TV shows over the last two decades. In addition to depicting the fall of the Republic and the near eradication of the Jedi, Revenge of the Sith completed Anakin Skywalker’s Star Wars timeline.

Yes, Anakin has since appeared in other Star Wars shows, including Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ahsoka, and he’s likely to return in Ahsoka season 2. Even without those shows, though, Anakin’s fall to the dark side had been revealed, and between the prequels and the original trilogy, audiences had seen him from childhood to his death. Yet, I’ve been missing a key aspect of his fall to the dark side and what followed for 20 years, although it was right there all along.

Obi-Wan Didn’t Go To Mustafar To Kill Anakin

I’d Always Believed This Was His Goal In Confronting Anakin

One of the most important (and painful) events in Revenge of the Sith is the battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan on Mustafar. This fight is ultimately what required Anakin to don the iconic Darth Vader suit, and the devastating brother-versus-brother duel to the death solidified that Anakin had gone past the point of no return. I’d always ᴀssumed that Obi-Wan Kenobi had gone in with that perspective and intended to kill Anakin from the beginning, but only on my most recent re-watch did I notice—Obi-Wan hadn’t intended to kill Anakin at all.

Obi-Wan Kenobi’s dialogue on Mustafar is telling, especially if one is paying close attention. After warning Master Yoda that he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to kill Anakin, he arrived on Mustafar and, notably, his first act was not to jump into battle. Rather, Obi-Wan tried multiple times and in myriad ways to reason with Anakin and get him to see the error of his ways and his thinking.

Several things Obi-Wan said on Mustafar prove that his goal was to convince Anakin to see how wrong he was. Obi-Wan told Anakin “Chancellor Palpatine is evil” and reminded Anakin that his “allegiance is to the Republic,” in addition to directly saying, “You have allowed this Dark Lord to twist your mind,” all to break this illusion Anakin had come to believe. It was only after Anakin refused to back down, calling the Jedi evil and saying he’d created an empire, that Obi-Wan said Anakin was “lost” and began to fight him.

It makes sense that Obi-Wan believed he could get through to his friend and help him find his way back to the light. After all, he’d been completely blindsided by the revelation that Anakin was the Jedi who had attacked the Temple (although he was obviously a Sith at that point). In all likelihood, Obi-Wan believed that Anakin had made a horrible error but that he wasn’t too far gone. For that reason, Obi-Wan tried his best to reason with him, only before realizing Anakin truly wasn’t coming back.

I’ve Been Completely Missing The Point Of These Mustafar Scenes

I Had Obi-Wan’s Motivations All Wrong

I’ve always seen the battle on Mustafar as little more than Obi-Wan coming to kill Anakin, as Yoda had instructed Obi-Wan to do, but I had that all wrong. Even then, right up until the end, Obi-Wan was trying to save Anakin. In fact, even after saying Anakin was lost and telling Anakin he would do what he must (presumably meaning kill him), when he had the high ground, he warned Anakin, “Don’t try it.” This suggests that, even at that point, Obi-Wan didn’t want to kill Anakin.

This goes beyond Obi-Wan just being devastated by the idea of killing his friend, though. Obi-Wan seemed to genuinely believe Anakin was still redeemable, if one looks closely at this conversation on Mustafar. I’d only ever thought of Padmé and Luke as the people who held out hope for Anakin, but, at least during their confrontation on Mustafar, Obi-Wan hadn’t entirely abandoned his hope for Anakin. This raises the fascinating question: What if Obi-Wan had successfully changed Anakin’s perspective?

What If Anakin Had Realized He Was Wrong And Sought Forgiveness?

This Would Have Become A Problem Of A Different Nature

Obviously, Anakin needed to fall in Revenge of the Sith for the original Star Wars trilogy to make sense, but it’s nevertheless interesting to imagine what would have happened had Obi-Wan been successful in getting Anakin to see the error of his ways. In addition to completely changing the Star Wars timeline, as the Empire would have looked entirely different without Darth Vader, this would have had fascinating—and problematic—implications.

Had Obi-Wan successfully turned Anakin back to the light side of the Force, it would have raised a whole host of complicated questions. Given Anakin/Vader had wiped out the Jedi, would Yoda realistically have forgiven him, or would he have insisted Anakin still needed to die? Would Padmé still have died in this scenario, if she had hope after Anakin’s return to the light? There’s also the question of Palpatine and his plans—how powerful could he have been without Vader?

These are of course all just part of a thought experiment, given, again, Anakin’s fate in Revenge of the Sith was already sealed. Even so, imagining what Star Wars would have looked like had Anakin come back to the light after Order 66 (and choking Padmé) is fascinating. Particularly because I’d completely misunderstood Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith for the last 20 years, I’m intrigued by all the implications had Obi-Wan been successful.