By George & Josh Bate
Over recent years, the Star Wars prequels has received a resurgence of praise, primarily driven by those who grew up with the films expressed their endless adoration for the three fantasy classics from George Lucas. In a recent interview with Chris Castellani, Star Wars stunt coordinator Nick Gillard revealed lots of exciting, never-before-heard details about the prequel trilogy.
Gillard revealed that George Lucas filmed so much footage for the prequels that there are “three more movies in footage” left on the cutting room floor across the three films. This corroborates previously revealed information about Revenge of the Sith, which claimed that an original cut of the film was over four-hours long.
More about the iconic battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith was also revealed in the interview. A version of the scene that was filmed featured Anakin grabbing Obi-Wan from the throat, disarming him,, and saying, “I’m really sorry, you have to be killed.” Anakin then proceeded to try to cut Obi-Wan’s head-off, a move which was then deflected by Obi-Wan to cut Anakin’s arms off. Gillard stated that he and the team “hated” the infamous high ground scene in Revenge of the Sith and that they “campaigned as hard as [they] could to get it changed, but George [Lucas] was having none of it.” He explained that he believes the scene in the final cut was Steven Spielberg’s idea.
Gillard played the Jedi Cin Drallig in Revenge of the Sith, and is briefly seen dueling Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker via hologram. Gillard provided new details about the original version of this scene that was filmed. “[Anakin] stabs a small girl right through the throat, holds her by it while he grabs another one. It was nasty.”
Gillard also explained that Lucas was involved in every department in making the prequels, from cinematography, visual effects, art direction, fight choreography, costume design, sound design, production design, casting/acting, and more.
In one of the final questions, Castellani asks if Gillard would return to choreography fight sequences for upcoming Star Wars shows if he was offered. Gillard emphatically responded, “Of course I would.”
Check out Chris Castellani’s full interview with Nick Gillard below….
