Below is a link to a little half hour documentary ESPN aired recently. It’s about the lightsaber duels in Star Wars and the real world martial art - kendo - that was one of the key influences in developing them. The part on the OT is quite good. The part on the PT is absolute bupkis as nothing in the PT even remotely resembles actual kendo. I laughed when George trotted out the tired old “faster and more intense.” And I almost choked when Nick Gillard demonstrated his “kendo” and then how he “evolved” it into the prequel baton twirling (his kendo demonstration was utter garbage and not even close to proper technique - he didn’t even grip the sword correctly, which is something even a novice with only a few lessons should be able to do).
But it’s kind of nice to see this considering I’ve enjoyed having several discussions about the sword fights in Star Wars both here on OT.com and elsewhere. Especially because I’ve often related and used my own personal experience with Olympic style fencing and nearly a decade of practicing Kendo to try to enhance the conversation and educate anyone who may not know much about sword combat. And this doc does a pretty good job giving succinct visual representations of things I’ve often tried to describe with words. Just ignore all the garbage about the prequels being anything remotely like kendo b/c that part is total BS.