Official: STAR WARS THREAD. These are the droids you're looking for. **WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

[hpreston]

There's a historical swordfighting guy who critiques movie sword fights. He did all the Star Wars movies.

Not surprisingly, he liked the OOT the most. Less flashy, mostly based on real styles, they actually look like they're trying to hit each other.

The critique of the prequels is not surprising, too many goddam spins and twirls. It looks impressive at first glance but it gets really ridiculous en masse. There are definitely some good phrases though.

Sequels, more or less the same as my critique. Everything is too heavy. You don't need to swing for the fences. Also reverse grip is terrible, stop using it Hollywood. Especially with a light saber, you'd get your damn arms lopped off.



On rewatch I'm still not sure whether I like the saber battles from the prequels or sequels better. The sequels obviously tried to be the anti-prequels (no spins/twirls/silly jumps), but they overdid it by making the weapons look clumsy instead of the "elegant weapon, from a more civilized age" that a lot of us fell in love with.

I saw his video about the recent Obi Wan series.

On the topic of sequel vs prequel lightsaber duels, this is an interesting conversation. Just isolating the lightsaber duels from the rest of the films.....
I prefer the sequel duels, since they were essentially kids, with either little (Kylo Renn) to no (Rey) formal lightsaber training. The prequel duels were way too choreographed and flashy to the point of being ridiculous.

 

[Gibonius]

I saw his video about the recent Obi Wan series.

Yeah just watched the Obi Wan video. Definitely solidifies my opinion that that fight was really, really well done. From a technical angle probably the best in all of Star Wars, although I'll still give ESB and ROTJ the nod for thematics.

On the topic of sequel vs prequel lightsaber duels, this is an interesting conversation. Just isolating the lightsaber duels from the rest of the films.....
I prefer the sequel duels, since they were essentially kids, with either little (Kylo Renn) to no (Rey) formal lightsaber training. The prequel duels were way too choreographed and flashy to the point of being ridiculous.

I get the intention with the prequels, these are the Jedi at their peak, they're supposed to be incredibly powerful. But it just ends up looking ridiculous, and the "but they have the Force" thing really doesn't work when it ends up being stupid stuff like "they're not actually swinging at each other" and "they don't move their feet at all." Or "he's just spinning his saber, cut his hands off," which was basically the entire problem with Grievous. The one with Maul was definitely the best, no surprise because Ray Park is an actual martial artist. Dooku, Christopher Lee, had a decent amount of sword training in his career and was pretty convincing too.

I was fine with the lightsaber fight in TFA. Kylo was hurt, Rey was a n00b, and Finn was a n00b with no Force ability. Kylo is actually pretty convincing, he definitely put some training time in. TLJ just had the throne room scene, which was A) not a lightsaber on lightsaber fight B) has the problem choreographed fights with multiple opponents always have. But still fun.

The one is ROS is just egregious to me, weighted by the movie being awful, but considering they're both supposed to be better at this point, it was just SO BAD. Almost everything is a big heavy swing, which ok they're trying to show emotion, but it's SO overdone. It's like bad Hollywood broadsword, you don't need to swing a sword like that much less a lightsaber. It's not a lead pipe for god's sake. They look less skilled than in TFA. It's like they watched the last five seconds of Luke vs Vader from ROTJ and ignored the rest of the fight.

 

[Jr Mouse]

The lightsaber fight in ROS was one of the few things they got right in the film. 🤷‍♂️

The throne room scene in TLJ was epic. Sure people can pick it apart by freeze-framing certain moments, but in motion, it works.

 

[Jr Mouse]

The final fight in Obi Wan was light years better then the other one from the series, but still had issues. I didn't care for how it was lit and the backdrop to the fight was a muted mess. Took away from the overall cinematography.

 

[Gibonius]

The lightsaber fight in ROS was one of the few things they got right in the film. 🤷‍♂️

Agree to disagree lol. That whole RAAAHHH HUGE SWINGS thing is a long standing pet peeve of mine in Hollywood sword choreography.



I remember the ridiculous fight in Die Another Day where Bond and the villain start out fencing (badly) and end up just wailing on each other with broadswords. It was honestly painful, especially since I watched it with a bunch of other fencers.

You can contrast that to something like Rob Roy, where he's actually using a broadsword but still looks dextrous.

 

[Gibonius]

The final fight in Obi Wan was light years better then the other one from the series, but still had issues. I didn't care for how it was lit and the backdrop to the fight was a muted mess. Took away from the overall cinematography.

Apparently they had some problems with the LED lit sabers saturating the cameras. Usually they add the glow in post, but for this one they actually had sabers that were really glowing. But it messed with the camera and then you apparently can't fix that.


The technical swordplay was ******* great though.

 

[Jr Mouse]

The final fight in Obi Wan was light years better then the other one from the series, but still had issues. I didn't care for how it was lit and the backdrop to the fight was a muted mess. Took away from the overall cinematography.

To be fair, this was the result of the budget. I’d like Disney to invest more in these series moving forward if they want them to be tent poles for the network.

They managed to avoid these problems with Mando so maybe they just didn’t spend their money as wisely with Obi Wan.

 

[Gibonius]

The throne room scene in TLJ was epic. Sure people can pick it apart by freeze-framing certain moments, but in motion, it works.

My complaint was more than they didn't give us a single lightsaber on lightsaber fight in that one. I think it's the only Star Wars movie that doesn't.


I'll give ROS this much, the dual fights with Rey and Kylo vs goons in Palpatine's lair were pretty cool, but again, lightsaber vs non-lightsaber.

 

[wojt]

Apparently they had some problems with the LED lit sabers saturating the cameras. Usually they add the glow in post, but for this one they actually had sabers that were really glowing. But it messed with the camera and then you apparently can't fix that.


The technical swordplay was ******* great though.

good points about sword fighting

I still need to check out the Duelists and see if it's as good as they say when it comes to sword play

 

[Jr Mouse]

My complaint was more than they didn't give us a single lightsaber on lightsaber fight in that one. I think it's the only Star Wars movie that doesn't.

I think that's fair, but for me the film makes up for it with the throne room fight and the big reveal at the end with Luke vs Kylo. Luke instantly showed off why he's one of the most powerful Jedi ever with that display of the force.

 

[Gibonius]

This is another entry in the best lightsaber fight, without relying of the cheating of relying on impossible physics of animation. There's so much buildup and the fight is pure Kurosawa with nods to the prequels. Probably how most lightsaber battles would go in reality. Quick, and savage.

 

[Kaplan]

^ Thanks for sharing that - I haven't seen any of the animated stuff, but those 3 minutes were better than anything in the recent D- show.

As for The Duellists, the sword fights seem to be on point, but it's also just a great movie. Rather impressive that it's Ridley's first.

 

[Jr Mouse]

…

 

[willy cheesesteak]

 

[hpreston]

OH YEAH!