anothe example of lucas changing things to appeal to a new generation lightsaber dueling styles of OT vs PT — Page 2

ChainsawAsh said:

Thanks for that video, it was pretty sweet.

It also demonstrates exactly why we never see realistic swordfighting in movies.  It all happens in the span of about two seconds, then one person has a sword in his brain.  Not very cinematic.

 Precisely.  Real one on one duels with swords were over very quickly once someone made the first move.  Also, historically, the vast majority of duels ended with BOTH people either permanently maimed/crippled or dead.  Not very cinematic at all.

There were exceptions though.  The most famous is probably Miyamoto Musashi.  He was a samurai in fuedal Japan who fought over 60 duels and never lost (there was one draw).  He also fought in several major military battles.  At one point he was ambushed by an entire sword training school after defeating both of the school's sensei in duels and he was able to fight his way out by luring them into muddy rice fields.  The school was one of the most famous in all Japan and some estimates put the ambushing force at as many as 80 students.  The school's reputation was utterly destroyed and it ceased to be after its encounter with Musashi.  The man has become absolute legend over the years.  Here's his wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi

Bingowings said:

Where Lucas went wrong was not matching the ability of the OT characters to those in the PT like with like.

Dooku spins, cartwheels, leaps and kicks in a way that makes Ben look...well like a real old guy using a sword.

Vader is a cyborg in the OT and yes he only has two arms and his hands don't spin at the wrist (which begs the question why if he is a more advanced cyborg?) but he is also a powerful Force user so he should have an edge over a non-Sith, non-Jedi Cyborg even with his extra spindles.

The cyborg/old man line doesn't really hold that much water with me.

I would say that Dooku spinning and flipping like Greg Louganis makes DOOKU look bad, not Obi-Wan in ANH.

(although for what it's worth, Obi in ANH and Luke in ESB both have at least one 'spin around for no apparent reason' moment)

Forget everything George Lucas has ever said. Forget all external explanations and look at the films.

Obi-Wan is an old man. While quick as a whip at times (the cantina) he's still and old man. Vader even mentions is ("your powers are weak old man").Obi's powers are of a more spiritual nature ("strike me down... yada yada")

Vader is a massive man in cumbersome armor. Whether he was supposed to be mechanical or not in ANH is irrelevant, nimbleness is not his gimmick. He's a fucking tank.

The fight bewteen Obi and Vader in "Star Wars" is exactly what a fight between an old man and a black armored cyborg juggernaut should be. Pointing out it's an old man v.s a cyborg is not implying there's something wrong with it.

Go to ESB and you have Luke, who's way faster than Obi and all full of juice, up against the slower Vader. Vader still totally out matches Luke, casually kicking his ass with a one handed defense and then telekinetically throwing shit at him.

Just because Vader is a cyborg doesn't mean he's not badass. This is exactly what a fight between a rookie v.s a cyborg should be. It's more dynamic than the duel in ANH but not as frenzied as their rematch in ROTJ when Luke is no longer a rookie.

TPM has Darth Maul, who's a whirling dervish of death, the likes of which we hadn't yet seen, and a lot of the pizazz in that fight comes from the fact it's also a chase.

ROTS has two of the best Jedi in the galaxy going at eachother with all they have, and given how the Jedi use the force in the PT (love it or hate it) I think the fight makes sense up until the FX orgy when the building collapses.

So we can look at the evolution of lightsaber fights as a change brought on by better FX, more attention paid to choreography, and eventually Lucas's changing philosophy of spectacle over story.

OR

We can see the same fights as making sense based on who is fighting, why and how, as presented in the films. There is no need for any kind of external explanation. And while the PT as a whole suffers from style over substance, those saber duels makes sense to be more dynamic (dynamic =/= better) given who's fighting, why and how.

here is the problem. you  are looking  at this all from the perspective of looking back on the OT duels AFTER  watching the PT films. You must look at the OT  duels before the PT came out.  No one thought the duels were WEAK or SLOW  or   not  flashy.  Sure we all thought the episode 5 and 6 duel was better than episode 4  but that had more to do with budget and time. the new hope duel looks no more slow than the  sword fights in sparatca  and other time period pieces.

after you  view the PT duels your view becomes bias  and you  have to make up reasons and excuses  for why the duels LOOK DIFFERENT.   they don't look different because  of  character flaws or traits they look different because  LUCAS  brought in a completely  different  style  of sword fighting and  trainer to teach the actors to use.  that would be like me  bringing in a guitar teacher like albert lee or james burton or brian  setzer to tech the   OT cast  to play country or rockabilly  and then bringing in  eddie van halen or slash or joe satriani  to teach the PT cast  rock or metal.   sure both  cast are playing guitar   but they are playing two different styles so they sound completly  different. n the movies case they LOOK  completly different because of this.

this  tarnishes peoples views of the OT  films especially young fans  who  grew up with the PT  films and have to look back on the OT and say such garbage  like vader was weak he was a machine  and  was hendered. vader was NOT weak  and has never been  weak. vader was the baddest guy in the galaxy  and he fought that way cause the screenplay was written for him to and the character was taught to that  way.

Hey man, I don't disagree.  The handling of lightsabers in the PT is a major point of contention for me, simply because it doesn't fit with what we were shown in the OT.

But you can't say that the TPM duel wasn't pretty badass in its own right.

dont get me wrong. there are actually some things I like aboyut the PT.  I like qui gon.  I like darth maul.  I feel they both should have lived   up till episode 3.    I did like the duel  from episode 1.  out of all 3  pt films I think  episode  1  was the most like the  ot.   when qui gon first encounters  maul on tattoine.  i think that saber duel looks like the OT duels .  while i hated the idea of a kid anakin  i felt there was still hope after episode 1  but after  episode 2 i knew the whole thing was lost.  episode 2 is the worst film ever made in my opinion.  for so many reasons.

not only  the screenplay  but the logic of it all.   padme  was trying to be  assinatied  and  mins later  she is standing out on an open balconey  in the middle of the city.  the  whole anakin jumping out of the speeder and falling 200 feet  and landing on the other speeder.  not to mentioned the way anakin just cries and whines and is disrespectful  to his master from the very first scene.  there is no way to get  attached to this character.  he is completely unlikeable.  it did nothing to touch on anything the whle back story was suppose to be about and then they cram 3 movies into one for episode 3.  its all one big mess.

I wonder why in the ESB duel Vader remarks "impressive, most impressive" when all Luke did was a simple force jump. seriously that was impressive? what about all the commonplace force powers the Jedi flaunted all the time as depicted in the prequels? not a big deal.

of course building your own light saber will get you a "INDEED you are powerful as the emperor has foreseen" out of Vader too.

OzoneSherrif said:

I wonder why in the ESB duel Vader remarks "impressive, most impressive" when all Luke did was a simple force jump. seriously that was impressive? what about all the commonplace force powers the Jedi flaunted all the time as depicted in the prequels? not a big deal.

of course building your own light saber will get you a "INDEED you are powerful as the emperor has foreseen" out of Vader too.

vader saying you  are  indeed powerful had nothing to do with luke building his lightsaber. when luke was saying come with me  etc..etc   luke was using the force on vader. all you have to do is watch the scene. vader felt lukes strength.

OzoneSherrif said:

I wonder why in the ESB duel Vader remarks "impressive, most impressive" when all Luke did was a simple force jump. seriously that was impressive? what about all the commonplace force powers the Jedi flaunted all the time as depicted in the prequels? not a big deal.

Two thoughts.

1. He was surprised that Luke, with such minimal training, could do anything better than swing a lightsaber awkwardly.
2. Force jumping super high IS impressive as a Jedi power, and the Jedi we saw doing it in the PT were all badasses.

haljordan28 said:

here is the problem. you  are looking  at this all from the perspective of looking back on the OT duels AFTER  watching the PT films. You must look at the OT  duels before the PT came out.  No one thought the duels were WEAK or SLOW  or   not  flashy. 

You're looking at this from the perspective of being defensive because kids in the park with a broomstick are pretending to be Darth Maul instead of Luke, and that deeply bothers you.

If the PT never came out, it still makes PERFECT SENSE that Luke/Vader II was faster and more dynamic that Obi/Vader because Obi was an old man and Luke was a full fledged Jedi Knight. It makes sense that Vader doesn't do flips and shit because he's seven feet tall in full body armor. The fact the same blatantly obvious story-logic extends to the fights in the PT does not make it somehow invalid. Just watch the movies. It's all there.

The duel in ANH is great, but its still and old man and a heavy cyborg.

haljordan28 said:
heres the facts on the  dueling styles....ion the OT  era..lucas always  claimed that the jedi were a mix of   merlin the wizard and the knights of the round table.....hence him using old europeon  style  swod fighting....

I missed this in your OP, but you are perhaps aware that the Jedi are overwhelmingly influenced by Lucas's well-documented love of Samurai movies right? If you read, I recommend Zombie's book. 

http://www.secrethistoryofstarwars.com/book.html

haljordan28 said:
dont get me wrong. there are actually some things I like aboyut the PT.

haljordan28 said:

now excuse me while i go take a shit and wipe my  azz with a prequel picture.  I mean JUNKQUEL picture  or piece of shit picture....ahh whop cares   it all  comesdown to the same thing.  prequel. haha

Forgive us. Honest mistake really.

"You're looking at this from the perspective of being defensive because kids in the park with a broomstick are pretending to be Darth Maul instead of Luke, and that deeply bothers you."

thats hogwash

what bothers me is the OT  duels at least  had   a sense of realism to them  where the PT  was  nothing more than 2 hr long power ranger episodes.

2 hour long Power Ranger episodes?  I don't think so.

They were overly flashy and didn't have much logic to them, I agree with that.  A Jedi should be able to hold his own in a duel while conserving as much energy as possible, which would be accomplished by only striking or defending when necessary.  Doing unnecessary flips and twirls ruins that, and makes the Jedi look ridiculous.

But Power Rangers?  Come on.

Because this thread is continually pulled down into ridiculousness, I have no apologies for derailing it further with more interesting talk about real sword technique...

Just to show that no one sport or martial art fully encompasses all aspects of using a sword, I present you with a great video of Iaido (pronouced ee-EYE-doh).  Iaido is the Japanese art of drawing a sword, striking down one or more imaginary opponents, and resheathing the sword (usually after a motion to shake or fling the blood from the blade).  The basic premise for each individual kata, or technique, is that the practitioner is in a peaceful, non combative state, but is then threatened.  He cuts down his attacker(s) before they can do the same to him.  In some kata you see him moving the handle of his sword around oddly before drawing the sword.  This is b/c in those kata, he sees his attacker beginning to draw his (the attacker's) own sword.  The practitioner then uses the handle of his own sword to interupt & stop his opponent's attack before drawing his own sword to end the fight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2CUlKCrzWQ&feature=related

canofhumdingers said:

Because this thread is continually pulled down into ridiculousness, I have no apologies for derailing it further with more interesting talk about real sword technique...

Taking into account both the original post and the original poster, I think you have nothing to apologize for.

Here's another really good video (I think I might like this one  better) of the same man doing some standing techniqes.  He's so fast, but SO subtle!  The way he resheathes the sword is just insane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqFaM7xgGLE&feature=related

ChainsawAsh said:

2 hour long Power Ranger episodes?  I don't think so.

They were overly flashy and didn't have much logic to them, I agree with that.  A Jedi should be able to hold his own in a duel while conserving as much energy as possible, which would be accomplished by only striking or defending when necessary.  Doing unnecessary flips and twirls ruins that, and makes the Jedi look ridiculous.

But Power Rangers?  Come on.

I find it  also hard to believe that a jedi and sith are so well trained in the art of saber dueling   considering no jedi  on the council had ever even seen a sith much less  battle one.  i guess they all stand in a room with those balls shooting lasers  and  spar with one another.

just another pathetic example of lucas pathetic prequel  story telling

That I strongly disagree with.  I imagine lightsaber training is an essential part of Jedi discipline - do you think that guy in the YouTube video canofhumdingers posted fights swordsmen regularly?  No.  It's a meditative thing.

Besides, if Jedi Knights were "guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy," I'd imagine they'd need a weapon, and they'd need to know how to use it.  Plus, I'd be shocked if there were no Jedi that went "bad" over the years - knowing how to duel against someone else with a lightsaber would be essential in the event that this happened.

On another note, I hate that the prequels made no distinction between a Jedi Knight and a Jedi Master - they were merely ranks in the prequels.  Before the prequels, I'd always assumed that Knights were the warriors with lightsabers, and the Masters never used weapons of any kind, and were the wise old ones in tune with the Force who guided the Jedi Knights without fighting themselves.  Obi-Wan was a Knight, Yoda was a Master.

Yet another missed opportunity for the prequels.

ray_afraid said:

ChainsawAsh said:

 

I hate that the prequels made no distinction between a Jedi Knight and a Jedi Master - they were merely ranks in the prequels.  Before the prequels, I'd always assumed that Knights were the warriors with lightsabers, and the Masters never used weapons of any kind, and were the wise old ones in tune with the Force who guided the Jedi Knights without fighting themselves.  Obi-Wan was a Knight, Yoda was a Master.

Yet another missed opportunity for the prequels.

YES! I always thought that too!

Also, why did the Jedi live on a planet covered with cities and busy air traffic and loud noises? I figured they would live on a planet full of nature and clean air where they could live and meditate in peace without distraction. Guess I just don't understand... no, wait, guess it's just stupid.

 Totally agree with both of you.  I always (& still prefer to) envisioned the Jedi living something like the the Shaolin Monks who invented Kung-Fu: in a remote, difficult to reach temple.  Part of the training would be just the journey to get there (kinda like in Batman Begins)...  Actually, I envisioned several such temples spread throughout remote regions of the galaxy.

I agree with your basic points, haljordan28 - that the lightsaber duels in the PT were unnecessarily flashy, over-choreographed, and just plain ridiculous.

But please, man, proofread your writing before you post; I think you'd gain some modicum of respect around here if your writing was more legible.

I don't think it's a proofreading issue, I think he either doesn't care or doesn't know better.