Prequels Saber Combat sucks

[shamrockjew]

The scene where they just spin the lightsabers I see as a more force intuition combat, where they are foreseeing every other maneuver and countering before it happens, in a loop.

Alright, I'll swallow the concept albeit a big pill. But that being said, why do they almost conveniently lock blades shortly after? It would imply (at least to me) that they decide to stop and take a break for a minute...

[EdAraujo]

Alright, I'll swallow the concept albeit a big pill. But that being said, why do they almost conveniently lock blades shortly after? It would imply (at least to me) that they decide to stop and take a break for a minute...

 

Could be a break, or they changed the intuitive duel to a more physical one.

This fight, I see as them duelling changing focus on many aspects of a combat. They are equally strong in almost all of the aspects, but Anakin looses in a tactic confrontation.

[-Singularity-]

The reason we see such disparity in action sequences between the original trilogy and the prequels is because of the era each trilogy was filmed in. There were no EP1 style fights in the originals because that way of filming action sequences had not yet been invented. Directors like John Woo and films like The Matrix have changed the way filmakers plan and execute their action sequences and have led film choreographers to hone their craft greatly since the late 70's early 80's. Lucas has always admitted his works are greatly influenced by other works, the prequel fight scenes are what you get when you have a Lucas who has watched action films in the 90's making your Star Wars movies.

[Drakcane]

http://answers.wikia.com/wiki/What_is_the_gyroscopic_effect_of_a_lightsaber_and_why_does_it_pose_so_much_difficulty.

 

This link explains the gyro effect created by the energy beam of a light saber and from a lore perspective settled for me both why the prequels had all the spinning and why old broken Darth Vader and untrained Luke basikly took baseball swing at each other. I've read the same info before in other location while doing random research on those time capsle like book items that were released, but failed to find those sites.

 

My link seems to have some issues so here is the text...

"The gyroscopic effect of a lightsaber is caused by the rapid looping of the particles of plasma that make up the blade. Positive (conjecture based on interception of Force lightning) particles of some form of gas are emitted from the center portion of the emitter matrix, and project to where the blade terminates. They then return to the emitter matrix (in particular the negative flux aperture or sometimes the blade shroud, depending on hilt design)

 

This rapid particulate movement acts as a stabilizing gyroscope, much like the one found in the Segway (which is what keeps the Segway from falling over.) This stabilization means that the lightsaber will resist movement and rotation, though particularly rotation. Much practice would be needed to overcome this resistance with any measure of reliability.

 

In the real world the same effect can be experienced by holding the axle of, for instance, a spinning bicycle wheel (which is, in essence, a simple gyroscope). It will be difficult to move in certain ways. This effect also helps bicycles and motorcycles remain upright in motion. In the movies, the lightsabers are actually rods, which explains why they move more like swords, and not like a blade made of plasma, which, in real life, doesn't (yet) exist."

Edited January 18, 2012 by Drakcane
Broken link

[reverendsoze]

The actor that played Vader in the fight scenes was a fencer that had to stand on platform shoes, so he wasn't the most mobile of people. The originals also did not have the budget of the prequals. That's why people wore robes and extravagant makeup or costumes were used on people or aliens. With the prequals having a near limitless budget, the concept of "bigger is better" took over.

[FilthyIlls]

The actor that played Vader in the fight scenes was a fencer that had to stand on platform shoes, so he wasn't the most mobile of people. The originals also did not have the budget of the prequals. That's why people wore robes and extravagant makeup or costumes were used on people or aliens. With the prequals having a near limitless budget, the concept of "bigger is better" took over.

 

Finally. Thank you. The MASTER fencer was named Bob Anderson and he passed away at the start of the new year. And yes he was about 6 inches shorter than David Prowse (the guy who played vader most of the time) so he wore platforms and still moved like a pro. Those fights are how I will always remember a lightsabre duel. Not the ******** flashy nonsense from the prequels.

 

And anyone that says watching a real sword fight would just be boring you are a mental midget. You say all this whirling around and yada yada was in anticipation of their opponent. NO. If you had ever watched a real sword fight you would know that anticipation is part of the fight, but it is not done by giving your back to your opponent and swinging your sword around like a 5 year old. It is done in slow, very calculated movements. Taking one step forward or back could mean life or death.

[FilthyIlls]

I wouldn't subscribe to that.

While it is true, that Kendo strikes are devastating, the wushu way is to be quick and move around a lot. You do little cuts and slashes, which will hinder your opponent until he loses. With a light sabre this is more effective than brute force, which you don't really need with a light sabre.

 

And while you do your devastating blow, I have hit you 2 or 3 times. But just a bit

 

Actually no while you dance around like a fool I'd avoid you until I saw an opening in whatever dance number you were performing and then wait for you to show me that opening again.

[Kharnis]

Finally. Thank you. The MASTER fencer was named Bob Anderson and he passed away at the start of the new year. And yes he was about 6 inches shorter than David Prowse (the guy who played vader most of the time) so he wore platforms and still moved like a pro. Those fights are how I will always remember a lightsabre duel. Not the ******** flashy nonsense from the prequels.

 

And anyone that says watching a real sword fight would just be boring you are a mental midget. You say all this whirling around and yada yada was in anticipation of their opponent. NO. If you had ever watched a real sword fight you would know that anticipation is part of the fight, but it is not done by giving your back to your opponent and swinging your sword around like a 5 year old. It is done in slow, very calculated movements. Taking one step forward or back could mean life or death.

 

You're quite right. Watching a real sword fight wouldn't be boring. What happened in the OT, especially the Vader/Obi-wan fight, was boring. They got progressively better as the OT went on, but you can't tell me the OT fights were some sort of breathtaking fight scenes.

 

And if you're so upset about "giving your back to your opponent," why aren't you ranting about the same thing happening in the OT? You are aware that there were a few times when Luke and

did a silly little spin around, thus "giving their back" to Vader, right?

[FilthyIlls]

You're quite right. Watching a real sword fight wouldn't be boring. What happened in the OT, especially the Vader/Obi-wan fight, was boring. They got progressively better as the OT went on, but you can't tell me the OT fights were some sort of breathtaking fight scenes.

 

And if you're so upset about "giving your back to your opponent," why aren't you ranting about the same thing happening in the OT? You are aware that there were a few times when Luke and

did a silly little spin around, thus "giving their back" to Vader, right?

 

Did I say that any of the fights were amazing? No, but they were far better than the ******** fancy pants dance routine they did in the prequels. You've shown me 2 instances where that happens in the OT. OK. And yes does it not look ridiculous? Every sabre fight in the prequels involves some sort of spinning like a figure skater and twirling their LS around like its a damn baton and they are in the marching band.

 

My opinion still stands that the fights were better in the OT.

[realID]

Meh, much as I despise the Prequel Trilogy, saber combat was infinitely better in them than the Original Trilogy.

 

In the OT, they swing their "weightless" blade as if they were giant claymores for the most part. The only weight on a light saber is the hilt and it's contents.

 

Now granted, I watched the OT in the theaters when they were originally released. They were cool then, they're still cool now.

 

Thing is, the more flashy, quick attacks of the PT are a much closer match to what I would expect.

[LeonKeyh]

?

[smartalectwo]

Always thought the very short fight between Qui-Gon and Maul on Tatooine was pretty good. More restrained and economical than some of the prequel duels, anyhow.

 

[RayceUlrand]

Why did the original trilogy portray combat like a swordsman duel,

 

The the prequels turned every jedi into a Ledy Gaga back up dancer?

 

Uh what swordsman are we talking about here? Much of it was swinging ..that's it.

 

Though I will say Episode 2's saber combat was poor, very poor ..I cannot refute how poor it was. Much of it was lazy close-ups, as if they gave up on it before it even began.

[mminczes]

The reason we see such disparity in action sequences between the original trilogy and the prequels is because of the era each trilogy was filmed in. There were no EP1 style fights in the originals because that way of filming action sequences had not yet been invented. Directors like John Woo and films like The Matrix have changed the way filmakers plan and execute their action sequences and have led film choreographers to hone their craft greatly since the late 70's early 80's. Lucas has always admitted his works are greatly influenced by other works, the prequel fight scenes are what you get when you have a Lucas who has watched action films in the 90's making your Star Wars movies.

 

This. It has nothing to do with the lore, this is the simplest and most likely answer. It's not because Luke was untrained and Vader was old, it's because 40 years passed. The reason the prequel fights are like that are because of the way cinema has changed.

 

In the OT, they swing their "weightless" blade as if they were giant claymores for the most part. The only weight on a light saber is the hilt and it's contents.

 

People keep saying that lightsabers are weightless. Provide a source that lightsabers are easy to wield, because everything I've read suggests the opposite.

Edited January 19, 2012 by mminczes

[Xienive]

To me it always looked in the prequals like they were actually trying to hit eachothers lightsabers wrather than hit eachother's body.

 

In the original trilogy it actually looks they are trying to attack eachother. Not to mention there are so many lightsaber fights in the prequals that they aren't really special like they were in the originals.

[Aileanjeune]

You can argue this point all day.

 

You are correct, the OT fights were more realistic (5-6).

 

However, people like the flash of the prequel fights. The only individual fights I respect from the prequels are the Obi-Qui-Gon-Maul fight, because it was thoughtfully choreographed and I could believe it from a Jedi fighting other Jedi. I also liked Dooku's fighting style simply because I've trained in classical fencing.

 

The other PT fights are absolute trash. The Obi vs Anakin was the worst POS in the whole series. Only people who have never experienced any sort of combat situation, not including karate or Tae Kwon D'oh, think that those fights are super-cool. They were facepalm-galore.

 

Tl;Dr- Yea, the OT fights were more realistic and overall better, but the PT were what people wanted to see. Most of them were garbage, but its obviously what the general populace likes, and what is popular is always correct.

[bliapis]

Yes the shift in fighting style is noticeable. They used to fight like swordmen wielding long swords and they shifted into ninjas and pirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr8s!

[MaceTowani]

Anakin vs Count Dooku in ROTS beats EVERY lightsaber fight in the OT save Luke vs Vader in ROTJ. Which, I would say, is more or less even.

 

Heck if you go by it scene by scene, the ROTS duel was inspired by the ROTJ duel.

[Gibmyster]

Are you freaking kidding me? The OT had HORRIBLE saber duels! They stood in one place and clubbed eachother's sabers!

 

The only thing the prequels exceed the OT in, and by a freaking large margin i might add, arer the light saber duels. They are just objectively better.

 

Seriously, the Darth Maul and Obi Wan figfht is so damn intense. The Anaking and Obi Wan fight is amazing (If a bit drawn out).

 

Compare that to the Obi Wan and Vader fight in A New Hope. LOLOLOLOL.

[Jackoshadow]

Finally. Thank you. The MASTER fencer was named Bob Anderson and he passed away at the start of the new year. And yes he was about 6 inches shorter than David Prowse (the guy who played vader most of the time) so he wore platforms and still moved like a pro. Those fights are how I will always remember a lightsabre duel. Not the ******** flashy nonsense from the prequels.

 

And anyone that says watching a real sword fight would just be boring you are a mental midget. You say all this whirling around and yada yada was in anticipation of their opponent. NO. If you had ever watched a real sword fight you would know that anticipation is part of the fight, but it is not done by giving your back to your opponent and swinging your sword around like a 5 year old. It is done in slow, very calculated movements. Taking one step forward or back could mean life or death.

 

No issues with most of what you say. A point to remember is that the fights were choreographed stage combat. They're made to look exciting and flashy for the audience, and even moreso for the fans who were familiar with the original movies with the somewhat stilted and stylized movements. With that said, there's a tremendous difference in watching a stage combat fight and watching two swordsmen really go at it. It's definitely not slow. The closest I ever got was olympic sabre and foil fencing (Junior Olympics, '88, woohoo), but even that is unbelievably fast. You blink, and you miss it. A step further, to the Japanese styles borrowed from heavily for the movies, and fights in that style did not last very long at all. Speed on the attack was of the essence, defense was minimized, and within a few strokes the fight was over.

 

I suspect a "real" fight between two Force users would be still for a few moments as each opponent tested each other's strength and skill in the Force, and then a flurry of motion and strikes.

 

And then one walks away.

 

[moonshiry]

After reading 5 pages worth of responses, its time for me to chip in. There will never be a actual solution to this thing IMO. It has a lot to do with personal style and preference. PERSONALLY, I prefer the episode 3 fight scenes. Trained swordsmen might consider obi wan vs anakin POS scenes but I found it highly entertaining. I type this whole post while watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSwy412nttI

 

There are several different factors for the difference in fight scenes between the old movies and the new ones.

 

1) As stated in a couple of responses, Cinematography was probably a limiting factor.

2) Bob Anderson was shorter than darth vader and therefore could not do the complicated choreographed fight scenes of the new movies.

3) George Lucas changed his focus of the medieval style swordplay to the fast moving agile asian styles

4) Popularity

 

All have been discussed throughly, so I'll just talk about number 3. No one gets it right the first time they do anything. If you start a business for the first time, you might have a good idea, theories and what to do in different situations but once you start a business for the 10th or 20th time, you start to get a hang of it and refine your techniques.

 

Same way here, george lucas probably looked at those fight scenes and while they were good, probably thought that "hmm jedi should be a lot more agile than that"

 

Now there are several differing points of views here. Firstly, no one knows how a jedi fights. We cant see it in real life, all we have is lores, books and movies. Note that when the movies came out, the lore was only fully fleshed out by writers, fans, community.

 

Jedi's are trained in the force from a young age to be the peace keepers of the galaxy. Trained in the force as well as swordsmanship, by the time they reach Anakin or Obiwan's age, one can say they are pretty proficient in both.

 

We must also take note not to compare the fightscenes in its entirety to modern sword fighting styles and cannot compare it exactly as it is in the movies as we all know that star wars i not Real or we would be force pushing everyone all over. (Another arguement here is Chi or qi gong as the chinese monks but lets not get into that)

 

The Jedi's or sith fight with the force, allowing them to move at inhuman speeds as well as allowing them to predict future incoming blows and deflect them away or to help them anticipate the incoming aspects. The closest thing we have in real life is firstly experience and intuition. It is always said that sword masters can predict what you are going to do based on the twitch of the eye, the tensing of muscles and just plain intuition.

 

But jedi's are different in a way that they use the force in a active conscious way, allowing it to direct their movements. Combat skill is one thing but the force is another. Without the force, one would just be a bandit brandishing a razor sharp blade. You might be good, but you will never be as good as the jedi. [go quote some yoda saying from wookiepedia, i forgot what it is]

 

Another thing is, their blades are weightless except for the hilt. We dont have anything in real life where the blades are weightless so we cant really compare. Japanese samuarais? Maybe. but then again their blades were heavy.

 

After looking at this fact, wouldn't you agree that if you had something razor sharp that would cut a person in half in whatever fighting techniques you use, dont you think a faster style would be better? with a lightsaber, you could just slide it gently across a hunk of metal and it would cut. You cant do that with a broad sword or a katana. You need power. That most likely constituted to the change in styles.

 

IMO this is why all light saber styles are fast hitting. Some might be faster and more ferocious e.g. the Jar kai, or hard hitting styles like the one Darth Malgus uses. This leads to variations in styles.

 

[MOVIE SECTION]

 

Now on to all the rotorblading and twisting and turning, for me I am able to convince myself as quite believable fighting scenes which is entirely my opinion and please dont flame me or anything.

 

Ok, lets talk about the spinning around and exposing you backs. Have you guys heard of Aikido? Its an japanese hand to hand or hand to blade martial technique that uses your opponents force to incapacitate them. This generally requires a lot of spinning and movement around the opponent. Think of the Ying and Yang or the Wu Shu "dragon style? I cant recall, the one where you are mostly circling around on the spot".

 

I feel that Episode 3 was the most exciting and least stupid fighting choreographed scenes from the episodes 1, 2 and 3. So i shall reference Obiwan vs Anakin.

 

They spin, so that they can redirect the force from their previous attack into the next giving them more powerful blows. (Witcher 1 anyone?) You cant compare this with normal sword fighting because their movements are enhanced through the force. The worst agile jedi is still better or comparable to a world's best agile force insensitive person. The spinning also helps keep their balance while moving at that speed and power. Its like dancing, you hold your partner's hand (in this case locking the lightsaber, preventing it from sliding towards you) with your hand over your partner's hand, she spins around and continues another routine ( obi wan spins while locking anakin's saber lock so that he can use the momentum while spinning to push his blade away while at the same time moving to gain reach and distance so that he can engage again looking for a chance of an opening.

I also find it unfair to excuse them of exposing their backs, as they turn, they move the blade to their backs as well to defend and attack as well. Refer to 0:49 - 0:51

 

It is through the force that they predict and counter predict each other's movements. Everytime they do that, it gets faster and faster and faster. Its just like in real life. You predict his motion and you move in to counter that but he anticipates it and counters you but you anticipate that counter and counter the counter! It just gets faster and faster and it spins out of control till they end up in a saber lock.

 

Let me give you an analogy. When you are typing on your keyboard copying lecture, sometimes you feel in the zone? and your typing speeds increases rapidly, and you feel happy but suddenly your brain cant keep up with the speed that you are typing at and you falter? I like to relate this to when Jedi's are fighting. It gets so fast to a point where its harder to predict your opponent's attack.

 

I watched the video at 1:40 of anakin vs Obi wan and i LOLED. I use the statements that i made just above to explain it. Though i must say it looked kinda hilarious and they should have probably left it out.

 

TL;DR, I cant make my post concise. you have to read it all to understand the point im trying to push across. I took some points of all the posts made, compiled in (in a general way) took up other points that previous posters did not elaborate in at put it here.

 

So there you have it, my opinion with analogy and references so that you guys can follow my train of thought. I dont think the fight scene was perfect, but i quite like how it portrayed the speed, agility and ferocity of the sith style vs the defensive soresu style ( obi wan )

[Aedilous]

Could be a break, or they changed the intuitive duel to a more physical one.

This fight, I see as them duelling changing focus on many aspects of a combat. They are equally strong in almost all of the aspects, but Anakin looses in a tactic confrontation.

 

I didn't see it as a break and I didn't see it as a change to a more physical duel. Instead I looked at that in the sense that, if they can foresee what the opponent does and counter what the opponent is going to do, they'll end up spinning blades trying to get an advantage until they die of exhaustion. Instead, you try a different tactic. If you notice after they lock blades they both try throwing the other with the force. That was the change in direction of combat. If you can't beat your opponent with a lightsaber for now, try something different.

[moonshiry]

I forgot to add that, the actors are HUMAN. And are limited in what they can do or portray to do. I love to watch the cut scenes and style of Star Wars the Force Unleashed 1 and 2 and i recommend U all to watch the videos and trailers and gameplay vids stuff

[ozirizo]

Be warned I did not read the entire thread.

 

Original movies saber battles are boring IMO.

 

Slow, mechanic, almost static.

[Tsukae]

I like the fighting style in PT better, but PT battles were so much longer they put me to sleep. OT battles got to the point so I generally enjoyed them more despite the lack of cool moves.