Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith Choreographer Reveals Inspiration of Infamous “High Ground” Line

The release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is causing some to look back on the galaxy far far away, and the movies and moments that they most love about the franchise. For an ever-growing subset of people, the prequel trilogy has a hearty helping of meme-worthy and surprising scenes, with a lot of fans having a particular soft spot for Revenge of the Sith. All these years after the film’s debut, the backstory behind one of its most iconic and bizarre lines of dialogue has finally been revealed. In a recent interview with IGN, Revenge of the Sith fight coordinator Nick Gillard spoke about the fight between Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) — and particularly, Obi’s line about having “the high ground”. As Gillard put it, the line stemmed from a funny behind-the-scenes rivalry between him and Hayden, as they were neighbors during the film’s production.

“We would eat in this restaurant every night that was up a hill,” Gillard revealed. “You could walk up the road and down to this restaurant, or you could walk across a steep bank to it. For me, I always want the most direct route so I’m going for the bank, and [Hayden] hates walking on a slope, so that was in my mind about the higher ground. If I can get [Anakin] on the slope, Obi might have a chance.”

Of course, Obi did end up having a chance, and used the “high ground” to chop off Anakin’s limbs and send him floating down Mustafar’s lava river. And while “It’s over Anakin. I have the high ground.” has been memed ad nauseam over the years, this behind-the-scenes backstory certainly makes you look at the scene in a whole new way.

This bit of trivia is just the latest example of the prequel trilogy’s unique energy, something that fans have definitely embraced in recent years.

“George Lucas wanted to do something very different with the prequels,” McGregor said in an interview last year. “That’s why people felt cheated. It was upsetting when people would laugh and joke about it. Now, many years later, the prequels meant a lot to the generation that were kids then. So from smirking, cynical opinions, now I’m getting feedback from the kids they were made for. I’m really happy about that.”

What do you think of the origins of “I have the high ground”? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!