A while ago I saw a post here on ComicVine which listed every single statement made by Nick Gillard (choreographer of the Prequel fights) about the leveling system George Lucas made ranking the lightsaber dueling skill of the Prequel characters. Unfortunately, when I went to my history to revisit it to check something it turned out that it's been deleted. So I decided to go look for all the statements and make my own post just to have them all compiled in one place like in the deleted thread.
Here are all the statements I was able to find:
The rankings show how competent the characters are at lightsaber combat but do not always determine the victor of a duel. The rankings were decided by George Lucas. In The Phantom Menace Obi-Wan was at level 6 or 7 while in Revenge of the Sith he is at level 8. In Attack of the Clones Anakin was at level 7 while in Revenge of the Sith he is at level 9. Yoda and Darth Sidious are at level 9 and at such a high level duels are decided by individual fighting styles and the circumstances.
Source: Homing Beacon #126, Dec 22, 2004
The rankings show a character's "relative skill" and in this interview Nick Gillard used a system of 8 levels instead of 9, possibly due to Nick forgetting how many levels there were since this interview was 6 years after ROTS or due to the interviewer misremembering his words. Regardless, the stated hierarchy of the characters is mostly consistent with the other statements. Yoda and Mace Windu are at the highest level, Obi-Wan is at the second highest level and Anakin is at the highest level or at a level above that which "doesn't really exist". He achieved such a level due to turning to the dark side.
Source: Star Wars: Den of Geek goes Jedi training with Nick Gillard
A youngling is at level 1, Kit Fisto is at level 7, Obi-Wan is at level 8, Yoda is at level 9, Mace is at level 8 bordering on level 9 and Anakin is at level 9. The level system is like a richter scale so the higher levels are larger than the lower ones, with levels 8 and 9 being a "cheat" in comparison to the lower ones.
Obi-Wan is at level 8 while Anakin, Yoda and Darth Sidious are at level 9. A duel between two level 9 combatants depends on the individual fighting styles and circumstances of the fight.
Source: theforce.net Just The Facts: Story & Characters - Palpatine
Obi-Wan was at level 7 in The Phantom Menace and reached level 8 in Revenge of the Sith. Anakin has gone up "probably four levels" from Attack of the Clones to Revenge of the Sith which would put him at level 5 during Attack of the Clones though this is inconsistent with another statement which puts him at level 7 so this is likely an exaggeration from Nick Gillard. Anakin is also stated here to be "unbeatable" and "far more dangerous than anybody in the universe".
Source: theforce.net - Nick Gillard talks ROTS video game
These statements are also repeated in the ROTS Prima guide from 2005.
Anakin in Revenge of the Sith has reached level 9 due to the dark side.
Gillard discussed the rankings with Lucas and the levels are stated to rate a character's "dexterity". In Revenge of the Sith Obi-Wan is at level 8 which is also where Anakin starts. Anakin then moves up to level 9 due to the dark side.
Source: Star Wars: The Official Figurine Collection #52
This statement is repeated in Star Wars Insider #85 with only slight differences in wording.
Obi-Wan is at level 8 while Yoda, Mace, Anakin and Sidious are at level 9, with Anakin having reached it due to the dark side.
Source: The Making of Revenge of the Sith
This statement is also repeated in Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection.
The levels are about skill and were designed by George Lucas. Yoda and Sidious are at level 9, Mace Windu is at level 8, in The Phantom Menace Obi-Wan was at level 6 or 7 and moved up to level 8 in Revenge of the Sith, Anakin was at level 7 in Attack of the Clones and moved up to level 9 in Revenge of the Sith due to the dark side, which means that his abilities are less controlled than Yoda's.
Source: Star Wars Archives: The Prequel Trilogy
In Attack of the Clones Anakin is more skilled than Obi-Wan.
Source: Teacher of the Masters, starwars.com
This statement is repeated in the production notes of Attack of the Clones on cinema.com
It is also repeated in Star Wars Archives: The Prequel Trilogy
In an interview with IGN in 2019 Nick Gillard says that Dooku is not a better swordfighter than Anakin but won their duel because "mentally, upstairs he's got it".
In contrast to the previous statement, Dooku is stated to be a better swordsman than Anakin and Obi-Wan in Mythmaking: Behind the Scenes of Star Wars: Episode Two.
Qui-Gon Jinn is at level 7 and is higher within that level than Kit Fisto due to having been taught by Dooku.
Dooku and Maul are at level 8 but are not equals because the level itself has a wide range.
In a vlog with Star Wars Theory Nick mentions that Dooku would likely defeat Maul in a fight "because he's a fencer", implying that Dooku is a more skilled duelist than Maul and is ranked higher within level 8.
It's mentioned at 37:50.
And so these were all the statements I was able to find. If you know any others please post them in this thread.
So what conclusions can we draw from these statements? Some rankings are definitive i.e. all statements agree about what level most characters are at. Yoda is always stated to be at level 9, ROTS Obi-Wan is always stated to be at level 8 etc.
There are only 2 contentious topics about the statements - which exact version of Anakin in ROTS is at level 9 and what level Mace is actually at.
Most statements about ROTS Anakin being at level 9 do not specify which version, as during the movie he falls more and more to the dark side.
The statements from Star Wars: The Official Figurine Collection #52 and Star Wars Insider #85 I posted above explicitly state that Anakin at the very beginning of Revenge of the Sith is at level 8, same as Obi-Wan. At that point his darkness is suppressed and Dooku is able to match him and Obi-Wan simultaneously. But after Anakin becomes enraged by Dooku's taunts, he quickly overpowers the count, who is at level 8 and is ranked higher than Maul, another level 8 duelist. It's possible that at this point Anakin became a level 9 duelist and, considering how suddenly and swiftly he overpowered Dooku, I personally find this very likely.
Later in the movie he falls completely to the dark side, easily defeating Cin Drallig at the Jedi Temple and later having Sith eyes on Mustafar. I think this is most likely the version of Anakin which Gillard considers superior to Yoda and Sidious and almost at level 10 which "doesn't really exist". Where the enraged version of Anakin on the Invisible Hand ranks in relation to them is unclear.
Now let's take a look at the biggest uncertainty regarding the rankings - Mace Windu's level.
The earliest statement about his level is from The Making of Revenge of the Sith, published in 2005, where he is stated to be at level 9. The next statement is from the Den of Geek interview in 2011 where he is again stated to be at the highest level alongside Yoda (though the levels were lowered by one in that interview for some reason, likely due to the interviewer misremembering Gillard's words). The next statement is from the interview with Saberproject in 2016 where Mace is stated to be at level 8 bordering on level 9. And the last statement found in The Star Wars Archives: The Prequel Trilogy which was published in 2020 says that Mace is at level 8.
After putting the statements in chronological order we begin to see a pattern. The two earlier statements both place Mace at level 9 while the two more recent statements made over a decade after the release of Revenge of the Sith place Mace at level 8 or level 8 bordering on level 9.
This raises the question of whether Nick Gillard could have forgotten Mace's original placement in George Lucas' hierarchy. All four statements are directly quoted from Gillard, though the Den of Geek interview is probably paraphrased. It's up to you to decide which level Mace was supposed to be at.
With all of this in mind, here is the tier list I made based on all the statements I have seen:
The order of some characters within the tiers themselves are not confirmed, aside from the following:
- Qui-Gon is ranked higher than Kit Fisto.
- Dooku is ranked higher than Darth Maul.
Like I said earlier, if anyone knows of any statement I missed, please post it below.
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