The prequel fights were garbage because it was just good guy vs. bad guy trying to outfight each other. Who cares.
Exactly. The reason why the lightsaber duels were so epic in the OT – particularly TESB – is because we are emotionally invested in the characters. In TESB, we are actually afraid for Luke as Luke cautiously steps up and ignites his saber and Vader coolly, nonchalantly ignites his. We get the sense that Luke is outmatched. And then the emotional buildup swells from there. When we get to the big reveal, holy crap! It’s thrilling.
The PT duels were just a bunch of acrobatics and stunt acting for the purpose of “dazzling” the audience. Quite frankly, the villains – Maul, Dooku, and Grievous – who cares? I really couldn’t quite sense why, exactly, they were bad and what they had to gain out of all of it. It’s all just…whatever. Hey, look at that – someone got an arm cut off. Woopee.
It’s stuff like this that leads me to very strongly believe that someone else was writing Star Wars for Lucas. Lucas was coming up with rough ideas: “Let’s do an ice fortress! Let’s have a city in the clouds! Let’s have snow lizards!” and someone else was stitching it all into great stories. And evidently, whoever that person was, was gone by the time the PT was done.
Lord Haseo said:
That’s fine and all but the scene in which Kylo Ren freezes the blaster bolt isn’t even a fight scene it’s a moment in the first scene of the film that establishes how powerful our villain is (which of course ends up being misdirection.). There weren’t any other factors that could have enhanced the tension or importance of the scene. It’s unfair to compare the scenes to be honest.
Like I said earlier, it’s a “Sharknado” moment. Any time you get into the, “But then why couldn’t…” moment, you’ve created something contrived. That is, if Ren can freeze blaster bolts in midair, why couldn’t Vader have frozen the blaster bolts fired by the crew of the Blockade Runner in the first movie?
Admittedly, some of the Force powers shown in TESB cross the line of being gratuitous. I love the idea of being able to use telekinesis to pull small objects like a blaster or your lightsaber to your hand, but the idea of being able to pull an X-wing out of a bog was too much. For then it opened up all other obvious “But then why couldn’t…” moments.
Why couldn’t Vader have caught Luke in his fall?
Why couldn’t the Emperor have floated back up to the platform?
Why couldn’t Luke have thrown the Rancor across the dungeon?
Why couldn’t Luke have bent the bars to let himself out of the Rancor’s dungeon?
Why couldn’t Luke levitate Lando out of the Sarlaac pit?
Why couldn’t Luke push all of Jabba’s bad guys into the Sarlaac pit?
I suppose that last one would be using the dark side, so it wouldn’t count, but you get my drift.