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).
I’ve noticed that while Bob Anderson’s noted as an accomplished fencer and fight chereographer, Gillard’s only ever been described as a stunt man/coordinator. Makes me wonder if the guy actually has any real knowledge of swordplay whatsoever.
My educated guess would be no. If anything, he might have some knowledge of some form of Kung fu, as that’s what a lot of his twirly spinny moves most closely resemble in my eyes. But I’m no expert on Kung fu and have never studied it in any form. What very little of it I have seen, specifically regarding sword use, often seems more flashy acrobatics than genuine combat. Much like the prequels… Heck, ray Park (Darth Maul) is a Kung fu guy.
But strictly speaking about Nick Gillard, I’ve only seen little clips of him in interviews like this and behind the scenes stuff, but making a judgement solely on that info I’d have to guess he doesn’t know a thing about real sword fighting. There’s just too many things in his choreography that are blatantly showy and have no remote basis in anything that actually works (such as holding your sword with one hand behind your back at 90 degrees to the incoming sword while you do a pirouette and thinking you have a snowball’s chance in hell of actually stopping that attack and not being severely wounded). His choreography often makes the same mistake that so many novices make - assuming that just because you put your sword between you and your opponent’s as he attacks then you’ve successfully blocked his attack. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sparred with someone new to kendo and still struck them even though they held their sword up in my way. You can generate so much force so easily with proper technique that their sword just bounces out of the way and you still make a strong cut into the target. He also has his opponents turn their backs on each other with spins WAY too much to get away with, IMO.
It’s not entirely unheard of to spin past your opponent, exposing your back to them, in sword fighting (there are some very specific instances in kendo where it’s the fastest way to get past your opponent and get your sword pointed back at them again) but it is generally a VERY bad idea with terrible consequences. Luke does it once or twice that I can remember in the OT, but at least one of those times (in ESB) is actually credible because he’s pinned against a wall and ducks under Vader’s attack as he spins away and out onto the catwalk.
I think a good litmus test might be to see if Gillard has ever choreographed any other movie sword fights and see how they compare to the prequels. I’ve never bothered to look into that…
Oh, and I just have to say I LOVE what JJ says about which are his favorite lightsaber duels and why towards the end of that show! As he kind of implies, in any movie conflict (whether swords are involved or not) the characters and the drama between them is SO MUCH more important than any choreography. It’s the same concept as that line from Lucas about “a special effect with no story isn’t very interesting.”