Originally posted by: canofhumdingers
Have to disagree with you here. i watched the TPM duel the other day for the first time in forever & i couldn't stand it. I've taken Olympic style fencing lessons for several years and recently started taking Kendo (japanese "samurai style" fencing) and Iaido (the art of drawing the sword and killing the antagonist, from an unassuming position - i.e. sitting on the floor eating a bowl of rice & someone attacks you). The TPM fight just made me cringe! Ewan McGreggor jumps off the ground EVERY time he blocks* a blow!!! You would NEVER do that! you'd get killed in a heartbeat! In fact, in kendo you never even allow your feet to cross (much less, leave the ground)! You keep you right foot forward & your left foot back in a very agressive stance. you move in an awkward(at first) way similar to how a child would run with a "stick pony" when playing cowboy. & you lift your feet just enough to be able to move them, effectively "gliding" across the ground. This is so that, when you run into your opponent, if you don't succeed at killing them, they can't knock you over when you run into each other. Having one foot forward & one back is a very stable/powerful position. if your feet are close together, or worse yet, in the air!!, you're a dead man. This doesn't even bring up the point of the ridiculous twirling baton lightsabers of the prequels! The OOT fights were at least reasonably believable as they were based on ACTUAL swordfighting techniques (& honetly, the ANH duel is probably most realistic). I'm a huge fan of swordfighting and can go a long way in forgiving the over-the-top fights from hollywood when they at least try to mimic something that you might actually do, but the prequels are just laughable. They remind me too much of the sword twirling you see at karate tournaments (not to knock karate, it has lots of cool aspects, but the majority of people you see using swords in a karate demo or tournament have no idea how to actually fight with one) Sorry for the rant, i've been chewing on that for a few days now...
*in my experience, you very rarely "block" in a swordfight. you either dodge altogether, which leaves your oppenent open for the brief moment they've extended to strike you, which gives you the chance to kill them. Or, you parry, which is not to block, but deflect the attck in such a way as to make an opening from which you can immediately attack. This attack is called the riposte (pronounced ruh-post or ree-post depending on who you talk to). Of course, this is mostly from my olympic style fencing experience, of which i practiced foil and epee, but really focused on sabre. I've only been taking kendo for the past 4 months or so & we're still working mainly on footwork and swinging the sword correctly. It's a very slow learning curve, like any sword art, and we probably won't begin thinking about the defense side of things for months to come.
The Duel of the Fates ( which to this day I think is the greatest lightsaber fight on film. No CGI bull shit doubles or artsy glow stick dancing. ESB's the most dramatic, but for pure spectacle this is the king.)
Have to disagree with you here. i watched the TPM duel the other day for the first time in forever & i couldn't stand it. I've taken Olympic style fencing lessons for several years and recently started taking Kendo (japanese "samurai style" fencing) and Iaido (the art of drawing the sword and killing the antagonist, from an unassuming position - i.e. sitting on the floor eating a bowl of rice & someone attacks you). The TPM fight just made me cringe! Ewan McGreggor jumps off the ground EVERY time he blocks* a blow!!! You would NEVER do that! you'd get killed in a heartbeat! In fact, in kendo you never even allow your feet to cross (much less, leave the ground)! You keep you right foot forward & your left foot back in a very agressive stance. you move in an awkward(at first) way similar to how a child would run with a "stick pony" when playing cowboy. & you lift your feet just enough to be able to move them, effectively "gliding" across the ground. This is so that, when you run into your opponent, if you don't succeed at killing them, they can't knock you over when you run into each other. Having one foot forward & one back is a very stable/powerful position. if your feet are close together, or worse yet, in the air!!, you're a dead man. This doesn't even bring up the point of the ridiculous twirling baton lightsabers of the prequels! The OOT fights were at least reasonably believable as they were based on ACTUAL swordfighting techniques (& honetly, the ANH duel is probably most realistic). I'm a huge fan of swordfighting and can go a long way in forgiving the over-the-top fights from hollywood when they at least try to mimic something that you might actually do, but the prequels are just laughable. They remind me too much of the sword twirling you see at karate tournaments (not to knock karate, it has lots of cool aspects, but the majority of people you see using swords in a karate demo or tournament have no idea how to actually fight with one) Sorry for the rant, i've been chewing on that for a few days now...
*in my experience, you very rarely "block" in a swordfight. you either dodge altogether, which leaves your oppenent open for the brief moment they've extended to strike you, which gives you the chance to kill them. Or, you parry, which is not to block, but deflect the attck in such a way as to make an opening from which you can immediately attack. This attack is called the riposte (pronounced ruh-post or ree-post depending on who you talk to). Of course, this is mostly from my olympic style fencing experience, of which i practiced foil and epee, but really focused on sabre. I've only been taking kendo for the past 4 months or so & we're still working mainly on footwork and swinging the sword correctly. It's a very slow learning curve, like any sword art, and we probably won't begin thinking about the defense side of things for months to come.
Wow deja vu. about 5 years ago someone said pretty much the same thing to me about how unrealistic the fighting in the pt is compared to the Ot. I agreed to some extent as far as the bouncing weightless cgi doubles are concerned but the realistic enough fencing thing I think is pretty moot when we're talking about star wars with jedi flying all over the place. Vader throws his saber at luke in rotj; I doubt a swordsman who doesn't have force powers would do that in real life. It's of course supposed to be cool and spectacular rather than perfectly accurate. But The fighting in AotC is the worst of them all I have to say. You can just tell absolutely none of the jedi have had any real martial arts training with a weapon whatsover. And I don't know the first thing about fencing so I'm have no idea what to look for as far as wrong footing and such is concerned, It's just the beauty in the well coreographed and intense lightsaber duel I admire that really shows how the jedi fought in their prime. Reality's the last thing on my mind while watching star wars.