Search your heart, you know it to be true.
I'm not saying The Northman and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith is a one-for-one comparison, but the third installment of Star Wars and Robert Eggers' re-telling of the legend of Amleth do share some surprising similarities. In both stories, we follow a broody, angry protagonist who falls in love with a powerful woman, one that might be an unconventional choice for them. Amleth is plagued by hate and vengeance while Anakin is plagued by hate and fear. Both men have some serious mommy issues. Both have magical swords. Both know what it is like to be enslaved. Both are fathers to twin babies—a boy and a girl. One daughter becomes a princess, the other one becomes a king.
But perhaps the most glaring similarity is that both Anakin and Amleth have a fate that leads them to a fiery demise on molten magma. As one of the most climactic lightsaber fights of the film (and ultimately the better one compared to Yoda and Palpatine), the end of Revenge of the Sith sees Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) dueling his former padawan and newly minted Sith lord Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen). The once arrogant padawan has turned to the dark side after being haunted by visions of his secret wife, Padmé (Natalie Portman). Sporting a pair of crazy yellow contact lenses and a casually shaggy haircut, Anakin allies with Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) in order to find the cure to death, betraying and slaughtering the Jedi Order and its little younglings in the process.
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On the fiery volcano planet of Mustafar, Anakin arrives to take care of the Separatists, and honestly, after killing some children, these adult rebels are nothing to him. But the real challenge comes when Padmé, horrified by what is happening, flies to Mustafar with a secret Obi-Wan in tow to find Anakin. The jealous Anakin spots Obi-Wan and assumes the worst, he force-chokes the pregnant Padmé blaming her for his violence until she passes out. At this point, Obi-Wan and Anakin engage in a fruitless argument; clearly, theirs is not a battle of wits. After Obi-Wan deals out the iconic line, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes," the two unsheathe their lightsabers, and the battle begins.
While The Northman's plot is nothing like Revenge of the Sith, the lead-up to the final battle between Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) and Fjölnir (Claes Bang) is not stifled by dialogue-heavy scenes and distracting edits. Ready to leave Iceland with Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy), Amleth has left his vendetta behind. After learning that his mother (Nicole Kidman) was an accomplice to his father's death and getting beaten by Fjölnir, he sets off with Olga to Orkney where his relatives are. But, after discovering Olga is pregnant with twins, Amleth returns to Iceland, fearing that his children will not be safe with Fjölnir alive.
Slaughtering all of Fjölnir's men and freeing his slaves, he rages through the village. Seeking out Fjölnir, he is attacked by his mother and half-brother whom he kills in self-defense. Fjölnir arrives to pick up their bodies and simply tells Amleth to meet him at the Gates of Hel for a duel to the presumable death. Amleth arrives wielding his Draugr sword, which can only be unsheathed at night or at the Gates of Hel, and he meets Fjölnir wordlessly, naked, and along flowing rivers of magma.
The battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan and Amleth and Fjölnir might seem different, one is a Viking holmgang on a volcano and the other is a Jedi face off at a factory on a fiery planet. However, they are actually the same. And yes, that fight at the Gates of Hel is the hot-girl volcanic duel that the Mustafar fight wishes it was. Robert Eggers sets up a fantastic scene, where we see these two experienced warriors fight with nothing to lose. Visually the two fights have the same stakes. Everything is on the line, the fate of a family and dynastic line. If Fjölnir wins, Olga and Amleth's children are in danger. If Anakin wins, Padmé might not get the medical attention she needs and die without delivering Luke and Leia.
The deadly spectacle on the volcano Hekla is far from the factory on Mustafar. Amleth and Fjölnir, both naked, are shadowed by the glowing red of their environment. Below them is the crumbly, jagged rock that is already a nightmare to walk on with shoes, around them is the flaming hot heat of Hel. This is not just a fight, this is about survival. There is no jumping and bounding around, this is sluggish, burdensome – it is a painfully physical battle that forces each beleaguered warrior to endure and outlast. Every clang of iron sounds like a clap of thunder. These two men meet on the battlefield after a lifetime apart but with hate fresh in their hearts. It is heart-pounding action, it is the climactic end of Amleth's story. Even as he is fatally wounded, he kills Fjölnir and dies content, knowing his family is safe, and is carried off to Valhalla.
Aside from the editing that cuts between their duel and the one happening between Yoda and Palpatine, there is a missing element of dramatic intensity on Mustafar. Yes, it is still exciting. But imagine, instead of jumping from hovering pallets and delivering a final resolution where Anakin's legs are cut off and burning on the banks of a lava river, we saw something more like what occurred on Helka. The fight on Helka was wordless, it needed no dialogue. The characters spoke with their actions. Anakin doesn't need to yell out that he hates Obi-Wan, we already know that. The man who was once like his brother is now his lethal opponent and potential romantic rival.
Although lines like, "You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you." and, "It's over, Anakin! I have the high ground!" might be some of the best moments of the movie, let's face it, the prequels were never known for their powerful dialogue. These are not diamonds in the rough lines, at best these are semi-precious stones.
It's obvious Anakin was like a brother to Obi-Wan, he literally said that to Yoda a couple of scenes ago. We can tell that he had the higher ground over Anakin. We've spent three movies with these characters, we know their nature and their motivations. Cutting the dialogue is an artistic choice that might not have fallen in line with the rest of the movie, but it would have been a bold statement. I'm not saying they need to be naked on Mustafar – although I'm sure we could cheat the light a bit and pull it off, Disney – but, instead of fizzling out like Anakin's smoldering almost-dead body, they could have gone out with a bang.
On top of that, there is no risk. We know the results, Anakin becomes Darth Vader and Obi-Wan becomes a Tatooine hermit. Obviously, Obi-Wan can't die in this, he's got to spend the next couple of decades watching over a precocious Luke. But perhaps a serious injury? A lost arm or foot? A bloody end where he finds himself on the operating table, waking up to the knowledge that the only thing left of his past life is Luke and Leia.
Where the Mustafar fight fails is in the fact that the characters' fates, like Amleth's, are sealed. But unlike Amleth, there's never a moment when we think that they might defy their fate. There's never a moment when we sincerely believe Anakin might make it out of here alive, or Obi-Wan might die right next to Anakin on those volcanic sands. Without the same potency of that Helka duel, the heights that the Mustafar fight might have reached can only play out in our imaginations, in wordless, shadowy, naked glory.
Therese Lacson is an editor for Collider. You can also find her work at Comics Beat, Nerdophiles, and Film Inquiry. When she's not writing you can find her playing video games, reading birth charts, and appearing on podcasts!
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