The Mustafar scene will not leave my head. I have watched it so many times it feels like it lives there rent free. However, over the weekend I found an old article where Iain McCaig, the concept artist on the prequels, revealed that in an original draft of Revenge of the Sith, Padmé tried to kill her husband during the Mustafar duel.
The Original Draft Put Padmé Inside the Birth of the Rebellion
Let us start with why Padmé would even consider killing Anakin in that early version. In a 2016 talk at the Academy of Art University, concept artist Iain McCaig said an original draft of Revenge of the Sith had Padmé already working with Bail Organa and Mon Mothma to seed a rebellion. Once she realizes Anakin is slipping into the dark side, she moves to act before it is too late.
We can see that direction in the deleted scenes where Padmé meets with Bail and Mon Mothma to form the Delegation of Two Thousand, which points to her Rebel path. Just to be precise, those deleted scenes show her political organizing, not an attempt on Anakin’s life. The knife moment comes from McCaig’s account of the draft and related concept art, not from a filmed.
Padmé Tries to Kill Anakin in Early Concept Art
After the above sharing, McCaig continued to a darker beat where he first showed the concept art of Padmé trying to cut her husband with a dagger on Mustafar. According to Digital Spy, “When she arrived on Mustafar (the lava-filled location of Anakin’s battle with Obi-Wan Kenobi), instead of just snivelling and being choked, she attempted to kill him with a knife.”
With that in mind, I looked for anything on the page that mentions this. We do not have a filmed scene, but we do have one concept art piece and supporting notes from the book The Art of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. First, let us look at the concept art below.
Also in the book we get the first few ideas of how Padmé’s fate was almost different: “On December 13, 2002, Lucas acknowledges that Queen Organa – Senator Bail Organa’s wife, who would come to raise Leia Skywalker – will appear in the film. He also stipulates that she is in her mid thirties, peaceful, and trustworthy. Meanwhile, because the script is still being written, the artist are still free to imagine what might happen in the course of the film. A great deal of time is spent speculating on the events surrounding Padme and her eventual fate… ‘I was brainstorming with Iain,’ Tiemens says, ‘and he thought Padme might have a dagger in her hand. George responded favorably and said, ‘I’m starting to see some scenes…’”
For us as viewers, this explains two things. First, why the deleted Delegation of Two Thousand scenes lean into Padmé as an early Rebel voice with Bail and Mon Mothma. Second, why the concept art can push farther than what ended up on screen. The team was testing a version of Padmé who might try to stop Anakin herself, then step onto a path that leads to open resistance. The film we got keeps the political thread mostly in deleted material and drops the dagger, but the early art and these notes show that a more active Padmé was on the table during development.
