10 Cringiest Moments In The Star Wars Prequels

3. Obi-Wan And Anakin's Final Confrontation

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith Anakin Skywalker Obi-Wan Kenobi
Disney

The prequel trilogy climaxes with an epic lightsaber duel between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the fiery realm of Mustafar, a sequence that the great Steven Spielberg reportedly contributed to.

And while it's certainly a feast for the eyes, it's yet another scene where George Lucas' pen and Hayden Christensen's performance combine with some frustratingly unconvincing results.

The whole thing is a cringe-fest from start to end, from the stilted way Christensen delivers "You've turned her against me!" and "You will not take her from me!" to a baffling moment midway through the fight where the two combatants stop trying to hit each other and instead just... twirl their blades around for a few seconds.

Add to that a handful of other clunky lines like "From my point of view the Jedi are evil!" (clearly, Mr. Lucas isn't a fan of the whole "show, don't tell" thing), and it's hard to take the drama of the sequence seriously.

On the plus side, the duel caps off with some genuinely affecting work from Ewan McGregor, and, as always, John Williams delivers the goods.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!