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I hear a lot of prequel fans complain about how the lightsaber duels in the Original Trilogy are just lame compared to in the prequels, and how the OT should be modified to make the duels better. However, as one who liked the prequels myself, I disagree.

With the slaughter of the Jedi in Revenge of the Sith, the days of the lightsaber were over. As Obi-Wan said, it is an "elegant weapon of a more civilized age." 20 years later, by the time the Original Trilogy comes around, the art of lightsaber dueling is all but forgotten.

After seeing the prequels, the OT lightsaber duels have more of an epic feeling to them, as if they are an echo of the events of a much more glorious time for the galaxy.

They don't need to be as fast or as elegant, because they are not the same kind of duels. These are more personal duels such as father vs. son (Luke vs. Vader) or old friends-turned-archenemies (Vader vs Obi-Wan). Its the dialogue that matters here, not the sheer speed of the swinging of the blades. Vader is not fighting Luke out of pure hatred or will to kill as Darth Maul fought the Jedi in Episode I.

And as Lucas himself said, Vader is a machine, Obi-Wan is an old man (somehow he aged fast on Tatooine, must have been the twin suns), and Luke had not been trained in the Jedi arts the way the Jedi Padawans of the Republic were trained.

I just wanted to say this because I read so much about prequel fans dissing the original trilogy duels because they are weak at times in comparison.

i just added my own thread similar to this. i dont thinkt he fights in esb and rotj are that bat, the luke vs vader in rotj is still one of my favourites becuase it does have so much emotion. and the one in esb is more about showing that vader could kill luke if he wanted but wants him alive so hes not really going all out. and luke is just learning.

i wouldnt mind if the ben vs vader rematch was given a minute or two extra footage just to give us some kind of recognition that these are the two we saw on mustafar. even if ben hadnt picked up a saber in 17 years its hard to imagine that hed have deteriorated that much. hes still a jedi with decades of training, i could fight better than he did and i have no way to see things before they happen to give me superhuman reflexes. even if they had about 30 seconds of generic fairly slow dueling it would look alot better.

the other two work well though, they are more about emotion than fighting. in rotj luke didnt want to fight so it makes sense that it wouldnt be a big showstopping fight. and when he did unleash he caught vader off guard and overwhelmed him. im not too fussed either way with ep 4, but id like 5 and 6 to stay how they are.

They really should remake the originals...

Originally posted by Darth Zannah
They really should remake the originals...

I hate when people say they should totally remake the originals because that in no way needs done. In fact, it would be much worse because the original trilogy was casted perfectly and to remake it would destroy the story and its power.

The only thing that needs done with the orginial trilogy is a few special-effects touch ups, most notably in A New Hope. The other movies are just fine. With today's technology, the special effects could be touched up very easily.

http://www.killermovies.com/forums/images/icons/v2/icon5.gif zOMG!!!1! The Preqals are teh much betterest because of soo meny fight!1 The OT should be redone beecas they don't have a million battles in one hour! The are teh lamest! CGI>plot!!!!!!111!111

Originally posted by Darth Nepulis
They really should remake the originals...

surely, you must be kidding right!?

Originally posted by beedubaya



And as Lucas himself said, Vader is a machine, Obi-Wan is an old man (somehow he aged fast on Tatooine, must have been the twin suns), and Luke had not been trained in the Jedi arts the way the Jedi Padawans of the Republic were trained.



A very poor excuse to why the duels sucked. Luke was trained by both Obi-Wan and Yoda so he has been trained in the jedi arts. Lucas should just admit that they didn't have that kind of dueling choreography back then.

Well...why? We already know that they didn't, but saying that the dueling choreography was horrible does not factor into the movies themselves. If the movies are meant to be portraying people who lived and so on, you couldn't say 'Obi-Wan couldn't defeat Darth Vader because his fight choreography was horrible!' because that would be like saying 'I couldn't open the can of tuna because my Fix-It score of 10 was insufficient for the roll difficulty of 25!' or 'The gun didn't shoot because it hadn't been invented yet.'

Originally posted by Darth Nepulis
They really should remake the originals...

And no, they shouldn't, seeing as they are better movies than the PT.

Originally posted by overlord
http://www.killermovies.com/forums/images/icons/v2/icon5.gif zOMG!!!1! The Preqals are teh much betterest because of soo meny fight!1 The OT should be redone beecas they don't have a million battles in one hour! The are teh lamest! CGI>plot!!!!!!111!111 Shut the f*ck up, overlord.

^ nice

Meh.. I just hate reading my previous posts..

OT duels are the greatest, PT duels are just eye candy, I'm agreeing with Overlord, his point hidden under the mock fanboy stuff an' all.

Originally posted by Captain REX
Well...why? We already know that they didn't, but saying that the dueling choreography was horrible does not factor into the movies themselves. If the movies are meant to be portraying people who lived and so on, you couldn't say 'Obi-Wan couldn't defeat Darth Vader because his fight choreography was horrible!' because that would be like saying 'I couldn't open the can of tuna because my Fix-It score of 10 was insufficient for the roll difficulty of 25!' or 'The gun didn't shoot because it hadn't been invented yet.'



And no, they shouldn't, seeing as they are better movies than the PT. *curt nod*

The reason why the fighting is different seems to be because lightsabers were getting heavier in the classics. Blades didn't weigh a thing in the prequels, in the classics they do. Stupid excuse I know...

It's ironic tho that when you compare the replicas of the hilts of the classics and the prequels it's actually the other way around.

Originally posted by exanda kane
OT duels are the greatest, PT duels are just eye candy, I'm agreeing with Overlord, his point hidden under the mock fanboy stuff an' all.
The only PT duel better then Luke vs. Vader (ESB) is Obi-Wan vs. Anakin. But they shouldn't remake the OT because they seem out of date.

the OT lightsaber battles stink because they were made in the 70s-80s and their effects werent as good back then

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Originally posted by DrDoom101
the OT lightsaber battles stink because they were made in the 70s-80s and their effects werent as good back then

And? Luke vs. Vader (ESB) is the second best duel in the entire saga

Nope. By far the best.

Anakin vs. Obi-Wan follows RotJ Luke and vader though.

How heavy would a real lightsaber be any way

Lucas used to say that they were really heavy, hence two hands when using.

Now because of the PT adn the latter RotJ use of the lightsaber he has to come up with lame excuses.

They say now, that the lightsaber blade has no weight, only the hilt does. This is also another attempt by Lucasarts to make the sabers even harder to wield, limiting their use to extremely skilled swordmans, or Force-sensitives.

I was just looking through and all i have to say is listen to Cascador hes right and how would Obi-wan forget how to use a light saber let alone Darth Vader he was one of the best during the jedis time. saying that because its a diffrent time thats why they cant fight I'd Like to see one of you or any one use a forty pound lightsaber hilt with one had for ten minutes.

Don't forget another thing

in story, Obi-Wan was getting older and Vader was getting weaker (that's why the emperor wanted to replace him)

So that is a good reason for not jumping, making salto's, leaps ao. Okay they are Jedi, but they are also human. Another thing is cause I know you'll wonder what about Dooku? He's also old, the emperor...well Obi-Wan didn't practice anymore with his lightsaber anymore on his sollitude on Tatooine, would also create attraction, which is the last thing he could use...Dooku kept training even when he grew older.

Luke is just not experienced enough in lightsaber fighting. I do believe he is strong and wise in the Force, which makes him a Jedi.

The PT fights are a bit monotonous. I mean, all it is is people swinging their lightsabers in two different directions alternatively, while in the PT there were more than two strike tactics. They're a bit slow, but what would you expect if no one's used a lightsaber against a lightsaber for twenty years?

Vader did. And you mean the OT the second time right?

No after the Jedi Purge, Vader almost didn't use his lightsaber either...It shows so in some comics, but it's probably not true.
Besides I don't see him that dynamic as Anakin was in the comics either.

I don't really care what anyone says, with prosthetic limbs and a mobile iron lung, you're not gonna be able to do what ROTS Jedi did, despite your power.

The duels were slow, because GL orriginaly intended 1) Lightabres to be extremly heavy, stated by mark hamill 2) if they moved the sabres to fast in those days they wudnt be able to animate them properly and theyd look shite. but i dnt think ESB and ROTJ are that bad and slow, sure theres no super duper effectes but its not like there bad.

Since both trilogies were made during different times, I think the sword-play of both trilogies is appropriately proportionate to their time of production.

I agree with Tangible God here. The OT was made in the 70s-80s, and its effects were absoloutly stunning for its time, but they don't seem so now, hence many thinking that the PT duels are better.

Also, as mentioned before, in the OT all the characters are older and/or have lost valuable practice time over the years. As for Luke, he didn't really train for that long if you think about it. He also began what training he had extremely late considering it was said that Ani started too late at about 9 or 10. If 10's late, then 19's practically ancient for beginning training.

I don't understand this concept of wanting to remake the OT. Special effects touch-ups I can imagine, as were done for the boxed-set release of the OT, but a total remake would ruin it. I, for one, can't imagine Han Solo as anyone other than Henry Ford. The casting was perfect, and "bad" special effects shouldn't be a reason to just redo something perfectly good (read: absoloutly amazing).

To see a dynamic fighting Vader can only be done in CGI! I never want to see that! Would be much much much worse! Cause no stuntguy can pull that off how they fought in the PT in that costume!

Christ. I wish people would STOP being such fanboys over the PT. Yes. The OT duels didn't have a lot of effects going for it. So f*cking what? The only thing that mattered was the EMOTION running through the two characters doing the dueling. And I'd rate the ROTJ duel SLIGHTLY higher than the ESB one.

Originally posted by office jesus
Christ. I wish people would STOP being such fanboys over the PT. Yes. The OT duels didn't have a lot of effects going for it. So f*cking what? The only thing that mattered was the EMOTION running through the two characters doing the dueling. And I'd rate the ROTJ duel SLIGHTLY higher than the ESB one.

I agree, my favourite movie of all of them was Rotj, because the old ones were great cause they focused more on dialogue and GOOD ACTING! rather than uber special effects(and the effects were stunning, absolutely incredible for the time period.) The newer ones had some crappy dialogue and annoying scenes. So they had to cover it up with great effects and stuff. Have you ever heard of the saying : " If you cant win them with reason, baffle them with bull shit" ? Also I would like to note that (lol) I think after Vader had been just choking people out with a flick of his wrist for 20 years, he kinda forgot how to actually WORK for his killings. I know that if I had to choose between getting all close and personal with a dude, or just strangling him from 30 feet away, I would choose the latter.

OT duels are far more realistic and better than the crap PT ones.

You must see that about 20+ years passed between the OT and the PT so by the time the Phantom Meance came out people wanted more flashy duels with all sorts of cool features. It wasn't as much as change in tech as in change of taste but the OT duels are better then the PT duels expect Anakin vs. Obi-Wan.