After 26 years, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace star Ewan McGregor has confirms fans’ suspicions about the film’s classic lightsaber duel. During an appearance at Fan Expo Boston (via Collider), the actor reflected on his experience making The Phantom Menace and shed light on some of the technical filmmaking aspects behind the sequence. McGregor and Darth Maul actor Ray Park were performing the fight choreography so quickly that director George Lucas feared audiences wouldn’t it buy it as believable. Since Lucas was shooting The Phantom Menace on film, he employed a trick to slow things down.
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“When me and Ray did that fight … George — I’ve got to get this right — over-cranked,” McGregor said. “We used to shoot on film, and you can adjust the speed that the film’s going through the camera. If you want it to be slow motion, you make the camera run really fast so when you play it back, it’s in slow motion. I remember hearing him saying, ‘They’re going too fast. Slightly over-crank the camera.’ So they over-cranked the camera to make it slightly slower because me and Ray were so fast doing this fight. He was worried that people wouldn’t believe it.”
Set to John Williams’ instantly iconic “Duel of the Fates,” the climactic lightsaber duel between Darth Maul and Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi is widely considered to be one of the film’s highlights. It ranks among the best duels in Star Wars franchise history, as it was the first real taste audiences had of Jedi and Sith fighting in their prime. The choreography was unlike anything seen in the original trilogy, demonstrating the tremendous skill sets of the warriors.
While the Phantom Menace duel is highly regarded amongst fans, Liam Neeson didn’t like that Qui-Gon Jinn was so easily defeated. In a recent video, the actor cracked that Qui-Gon was “hardly a master Jedi” for meeting his ultimate end after falling for one of Maul’s tricks. Despite that sentiment, Neeson still said he had a “great” time overall while making the film.
This bit of insight from McGregor gives fans an idea of how seriously the prequel trilogy actors took their training. The lightsaber duels were intricately choreographed, so you wouldn’t have been able to perform the moves quickly unless you were well-versed with all the steps and had the entire sequence memorized. That obviously takes a great deal of repetition, practice, and commitment. McGregor and Park were seemingly too good at their jobs; it’s ironic that Lucas, famous for his direction of “faster and more intense” felt the Phantom Menace duel needed to be slowed down.
It’s understandable why McGregor and Park acted fast when performing the scene. They were playing a powerful Jedi and Sith, respectively, and it was necessary for the characters’ strength to come through on screen. The lightsaber duels of the prequels were far removed from Alec Guinness’ fight against Darth Vader in Star Wars: A New Hope. Fans were eager to see lightsaber conflicts be elevated to a new level. Fortunately, Lucas had some tricks up his sleeve to ensure audiences didn’t miss anything in all the excitement.
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