Star Wars Recreates Empire Strikes Back’s Iconic Lightsaber Duel in Animation

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month, and Star Wars Kids is exposing that epic piece of the Star Wars Skywalker Saga to a whole new generation of fans. Star Wars Galaxy of Adventures has debuted a new short called “Clash on Cloud City”, which recreates the infamous first Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader Cloud City duel in animated form. Like so many of these Star Wars Galaxy of Adventures shorts, the animators do a great job of capturing the iconic scene with epic reverence that will surely wow young viewers into Star Wars fandom.

Take a look at Star Wars Galaxy of Adventures “Clash on Cloud City” segment, above!

As stated, the joy of these animated series shorts is how the animators have much more creative freedom to craft truly epic and exciting animated visions of some of Star Wars‘ most iconic moments. Seeing Luke and Vader duel in this format is thrilling, as are added details like seeing Luke and Vader’s lightsabers crossing and forming a purple aura – a mix of their red and blue blades.

There is one major detail that Star Wars fans will undoubtedly notice about this animated segment: there’s no major reveal that Vader is actually Luke Skywalker’s father, Anakin Skywalker. No doubt that’s a very intentional choice, as Vader’s reveal to Luke is one of (if not THE) biggest twist in the entire Skywalker Saga (unless you start with The Prequels…). To any younger fan watching this animated short and seeing Luke’s duel with Vader for the first time, this moment would also be seriously underwhelming without proper context.

We’ve already done the breakdown about why the Star Wars Skywalker Saga needs to get an entire trilogy of animated films for the younger crowd. The Star Wars Galaxy Adventures series seems to be a platform that’s gaining more and more notice – thanks in part to the Star Wars franchise being a featured part of Disney+, and YouTube and other such platforms popular with young fans. It would be great to see an animated Skywalker Saga to go along with the larger Star Wars animated brand that has become so key to the franchise, thanks to the trailblazing effort of The Clone Wars series, which led to Star Wars Rebels and later the allowed those same showrunners to create The Mandalorian and the soon-to-be-expanding Star Wars live-action TV brand.

In short: translating the greatness of Star Wars for a new generation is good thing, and we want to see more of it!