MrInsaneA said:
darth_ender said:
Off the top of my head, just from TPM, charging toward Qui-Gon and Maul through the shielded corridor, repeatedly spinning his saber to the side; mimicking Maul's efficient disengagement by doing his own balletic pose just after Qui-Gon was stabbed; earlier he and Qui-Gon followed Maul jumping over a bridge, Qui-Gon simply jumps, Kenobi flips. I've noticed the pointless spinning many times throughout the PT. In ROTS, his stance when he says, "I don't think so," as he faces Grievous is just silly. I'm going a lot from memory and what I've read of others more knowledgeable in sword-fighting, but now that they pointed it out, instead of looking cool, it bugs me a bit. It looks "cool" in the sense that it's fast and carries a sort of arrogance with it that we Americans are so fond of, but in reality it's just wasted energy.
Luke did unnecessary flips also. Dagobah, Bespin, the Emperor's Throne Room...so it honestly doesn't bother me one bit when Obi-Wan or any Jedi for that matter, tries to get a little fancy or "arrogant." Personal preference? Yeah,sure. But it isn't completely contrary to what was established in the OT.
On Dagobah Luke was training, on Cloud City he was supposed to be an arrogant aggressor, and still I believe his jumps were largely well-calculated and necessary, not just fun showing off. I can only think of Luke's jump into that circular control area and then backflip onto the catwalk, which was IMO well designed to disengage from the fight and try reasoning with his old man.
The funny thing is I don't criticize the Jinn/Kenobi/Maul fight because it seems like it had to be that way. After no new Star Wars movies for 16 years, we expect something along the same lines, and I believe Jinn and Kenobi came off pretty cool in TPM, but when it came to the fighting, they were facing a completely new challenge, one who had trained in a different style, and it took all their skills to face him. I think the continuous efforts to outdo that fight actually cheapened the effect of the whole trilogy. It was cool once, but I'd rather have seen Dooku as a champion with the controlled blade instead of other wild swinging. But as I just stated, he does do that somewhat. I guess even more would have been to my taste, like a modern day fencer or something like that: quick, controlled, centered.
Ultimately, it is all personal preference, and I like the PT better than 90% on this site. It's not that I hate the fight scenes but feel they would be improved, and as is this threads intent, better fitting with the OT if they were executed as I suggested.