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Storytelling

Dialog practice: best and worst lines in Star Wars

Picking out some of the best and worst lines in Star Wars.

Attack of the Clones

Obi-Wan and Anakin in the airspeeder chasing Zam

Video

Obi-Wan: If you spent as much time practicing your saber techniques as you do your wit, you would rival master Yoda as a swordsman.
Anakin: I thought I already did!
Obi-Wan: Only in your mind, my very young apprentice.

"Only in your mind" means nothing different from "false". It's about as good a line as if he'd said, "you don't, my very young apprentice". Bland to the max when a witty comeback was expected.

Obi-Wan losing a starfighter battle to Jango Fett

Don't have a video link for this.

Obi-Wan: Blast! This is why I hate flying!

This is a good line because it's a callback to this earlier exchange in the speeder chase:

Anakin: Sorry master. I forgot you don't like flying.
Obi-Wan: I don't mind flying, but what you're doing is suicide.

Geonosis arena battle

Video

Anakin: You call this a diplomatic solution?
Padme: No, I call it aggressive negotiations.

This line was an attempted callback to the earlier exchange at the dinner table:

Video

Anakin: And when I got to them, they went into... aggressive negotations.
Padme: Aggressive negotations? What's that?
Anakin: Ah... well... negotations with a lightsaber.

However, the exchange is really out of place. It takes place in the heat of battle as a conversational island. And Anakin's question makes no sense even as a joke. Is he implying that it's normal for senators to look for diplomatic solutions when caught in the heat of battle? It would be a little funny if that were the case or if Padme had said something earlier about finding a diplomatic solution to this conflict, but it's not and she didn't.

The Dooku battle, after Anakin gets back up to save Obi-Wan

Video

Dooku: Brave of you, boy. I would have thought you had learned your lesson.
Anakin: I am a slow learner.

Anakin owns his flaws and taunts the villain in one. This line actually zings, does a lot for his rootability.

Revenge of the Sith

Anakin is force-choking Padme after finding out she brought Obi-Wan with her

Video

Obi-Wan: Let her go, Anakin.
(Anakin doesn't let her go.)
Obi-Wan: Let. Her. Go.

Awful. Obi-Wan voices the line like he's acting tough, but he's *not* acting tough, he's just standing there watching Anakin hurt an innocent person.

The following conversation after Padme has fallen unconscious from Obi-Wan's unwillingness to save her

Video

Obi-Wan: Anakin, my allegiance is to the republic, to democracy!
Anakin: If you're not with me, then you're my enemy!
Obi-Wan: Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

Anakin's line here is pretty bad. It isn't what he believes (he doesn't see ordinary citizens of the galaxy as his enemy), doesn't follow well from the previous line, and his voice acting is melodramatic.

But Obi-Wan's response is worse. I think other people have beaten this one into the ground already, but the statement is wrong on every level and is hypocritical because it is itself an absolute.

During the battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin when they get a spot to exchange a few lines

Video

Obi-Wan: Anakin, chancellor Palpatine is evil!
Anakin: From my point of view the Jedi are evil!
Obi-Wan: Well then you are lost!

Obi-Wan's first line is bad. It's not believable that he would waste his breath still trying to make moral appeals and the specific one he makes is devoid of substance.

This time Anakin's line is worse. What kind of nihilist language is this? It's not only incredibly un-forceful, it's ironic following Obi-Wan's "Only a Sith deals in absolutes". Apparently the Sith deal in viewpoints and opinions.

And Obi-Wan's second line? Holy shit, you didn't decide he was lost when you found out he killed the entire Jedi order including a bunch of kids? That didn't put him past the moral event horizon but hearing him say the Jedi are evil does?

A New Hope

Conversation before Obi-Wan's battle with Vader

Vader: When I left you, I was but a learner; now, I am the master.
Obi-Wan: Only a master of evil, Darth.

Obi-Wan's line was bland and cringe before the prequels, but after them it's a callback to how Anakin was never actually promoted to Jedi master. He was salty about that and Obi-Wan remembers it after all these years and teases him about it. But the line should've been written so that it wasn't cringe without the antecedent, since the prequels are meant to be watched after the OT.

The antecedent in RotS:

Mace Windu: You are on this council, but we do not grant you the rank of master.
Anakin: What? How can you do this? This is outrageous, it's unfair!

The Last Jedi

Rose's infamous "saving" Finn

This video cuts out a few seconds between the crash and the conversation, but I couldn't find a better one.

Finn: Why did you stop me?
Rose: I saved you... dummy. That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate... saving what we love.
Finn and Rose kiss as the Resistance base is destroyed by the First Order artillery that Rose saved.

Other people have beaten Rose's line here into the ground, as well as the pure treachery of her action, but it really is one of the worst lines in all of Star Wars. It's totally and obviously wrong in the context of warfare, hypocritical since Finn was trying to save what he loved, *and* undermines the prequels, where Anakin followed this exact advice (saving Padme over destroying the Sith) and was rightly portrayed as evil for it.

First Order ships have tracked the Resistance through hyperspace

Finn: So if we jump to lightspeed... they'll just find us again, and we'll be out of fuel. They've got us.
Poe: Not yet, they don't. (Goes over to Leia)
Poe: Permission to jump in an X-Wing and blow something up?
Leia: Permission granted.

A fantastic callback to earlier line and personal stab Leia can't argue with. This scene took place earlier (I couldn't find a decent video or script of it), after Poe disobeys orders and successfully destroys a First Order dreadnaught:

Leia: (Slaps Poe) You're demoted.
Leia: There are some problems that you cannot solve by jumping in an X-Wing and blowing things up!

One thing that's disgusting about this scene is how well-liked it apparently is, because the Google results were filled with edited videos of Leia assaulting Poe repeatedly. Apparently a lot of people enjoy watching this.

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