Zak said:Ithilgore said:Akwat Kbrana said:Darth Venal said:He may do that, he did it with the Ben/Vader fight in Star Wars. There's nothing wrong with the duels as such, just that the prequels had much better choreography and they make them look a little pedestrian.
I disagree. Aside from a few shots in Duel of the Fates, the PT lightsabre duels look contrived, rehearsed, and choreographed. Of course, that's because the duels in all of the Star Wars movies are in fact contrived, rehearsed, and choreographed, but the OT duels (aside from ANH, of course) don't look that way. In Luke's duels with Vader, it really looks like they're each trying to skewer one another. In the PT duels, it just looks like each contender is trying to swing his sabre around fancily and make contact with the other's blade.
Sure, the PT battles look pretty. So do acrobat routines, parades, and rock concert choreography, but there's no real danger to be found. I prefer my lightsabre duels to be a little more realistic and spontaneous, myself. The PT duels are many things to many people, but they certainly aren't spontaneous, or believable.
To sum it up.
Oh yeah. I agree 100%
This statement can be applied to any number of martial arts movies. It doesn't mean people (myself included) do not enjoy them still.
The image above does oversell the choreography a bit, but I see no problem with the rest of the PT duels, other than maybe how the ROTS duel was edited (in that damn Michael Bay hold-a-shot-for-3-seconds-then-cut style).
The duel that bothers me most out of all the films (even more than the original Obi Wan/Vader duel on the Death Star) is the ending of the Luke/Vader fight from ROTJ. I hate how Luke is wildly swinging, as if he never picked up a lightsaber before in his life, and decided to up and start a new hobby, and happened to catch Vader off-guard one day and defeated him. Seriously, at least Luke looked like he knew a little bit about dueling in ESB... in ROTJ he looks like he forgot how to duel toward the end. And I don't think being angry would make him forget how to duel properly, so I've never bought the whole "he was mad at the time" argument.
At least the ESB duel looks nice. Though you can't say there are not times when even the OT duels looks choreographed. Anytime a character in a movie spins during a fight, it always looks choreographed... I can't see how anyone would think that Luke's spin in ESB near the beginning of the duel looks NATURAL! And of course there's the ridiculously SLOW spin by Obi Wan in ANH.
I guess what I'm saying is: the OT duels aren't perfect either, just slower and less choreographed. It's apples and oranges on the flaws of the OT and PT duels.
Still, ESB has the best duel, in my opinion. For the sake of bringing this back on topic, I have no real suggestions for changing the duel in ESB:R other than new rotoscopes for the lightsabers, and adding burn marks to any surfaces that the lightsabers hit. The glow on the face of Luke from Vader's saber was already added, so now I don't have to beg for it!