“Unpacking The Most Infamous Meme Of The Star Wars Prequels”

“One of the most famous pieces of geographical strategy from Sun Tzu, everybody’s favorite tactically brilliant Eastern Zhou era military philosopher, was: “When the enemy occupies high ground, do not confront him. If he attacks downhill, do not oppose him.”

Whether mankind collectively appreciates the value of high ground because of Sun Tzu or Revenge of the Sith, however, will remain an eternal question. Writ large, the prequel trilogy has gifted pop culture countless contributions to the library of memes; for every shot, every sequence, every line of dialogue, it seems, there’s an accompanying JPEG or GIF to memorialize each chapter’s minutiae. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s (Ewan McGregor) fateful final warning to his fallen Padawan, Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), is arguably the greatest meme of the bunch, not because it honors Sun Tzu’s wisdom, but because it bungles it: ‘It’s over Anakin! I have the high ground!'” (Full essay available at Inverse.)

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