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.
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.
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
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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.'
And no, they shouldn't, seeing as they are better movies than the PT.
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Last edited by Captain REX on Jan 9th, 2006 at 08:49 AM
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.
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"The greatest hero is the one who learns to face his fears and overconquers it!"
Dec 16th, 2005 07:00 AM
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 
nice
Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos.
