Luke Skywalker Igniting His Saber Before a Dark Trooper — Print & Oil Painting

The threat has been put in the top corner and simply left there. A black droid head with two red optics stands at the upper right, thrown out of focus, close enough that its shoulder plate crops the edge of the frame.

The man occupies the centre, hooded, with the near hand thrown forward palm-up and the fingers open toward something off the left edge. The other hand is low and closed on the hilt, and the green blade has just come out, rising across the lower left corner. Ignition and gesture are happening in the same instant.

Pale flecks fill the air throughout, drifting rather than flying: paint chips, dust, cooling sparks. A wrecked droid lies collapsed at the lower left in green light, and behind everything a grey corridor wall carries a run of narrow lit slots.

The coldest thing here is the head. Lit from beneath by the blade, mouth closed, eyes level and unhurried, it carries no anger and no strain at all. It is the face of a man doing a scheduled task.

What makes the whole sequence sit differently from every other fight in the saga is that these opponents are droids rather than men in armour, so nothing that follows carries a moral cost and the picture can be enjoyed as pure competence. Part of our Star Wars collection, next to the same blade lit in a doorway and the red-eyed opponent met in a dark chamber.