Registered: Jul 2015
Location: The Darkest Corner of your Mind
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According to the novel, Sidious had told Dooku to hold back, because he wanted to use Anakin to murder Obi-Wan. (Which also partly explains Dooku's shocked face when Sidious tells Anakin to kill Dooku. While he might have expected a Sith master to stand back and let the strongest man win, he would not have expected his master to change the plan on him in that way.)
Also, Sidious was there and he was watching. He was also quite capable of using the Force in whatever small ways he wanted to if it would influence the outcome by either helping Anakin or by hindering Dooku.
Also stated in the book, Dooku's pride got in his way. Anakin and Obi Wan's opening stances were from different "styles" than they proceeded to fight in. Dooku was put on an unbalanced defensive by preparing for their fighting style based on these opening stances, and then not fighting as he expected them to.
__________________ "Technology equals might!" "Evolve or perish"
If you read the novelization in context, you'll find that the one-on-one battle between Anakin and Dooku wasn't really that close at all. Anakin straight-up overwhelmed Dooku... Then killed him.
Furthermore, it wasn't implied that Dooku was holding back at all. To the contrary, he was more 'force-amped' than we'd ever seen him before. Ergo the following narrative:
"[Dooku] called upon the Force, gathering it to himself and wrapping himself within it. He breathed it in and held it whirling inside his heart, clenching down upon it until he could feel the spin of the galaxy around him. Until he became the axis of the Universe. This was the real power of the dark side, the power he had suspected even as a boy, had sought through his long life until Darth Sidious had shown him that it had been his all along. The dark side didn't bring him to the center of the universe. It made him the center. He drew power into his innermost being until the Force itself existed only to serve his will."
I get Kurk's point though. Before Skywalker tapped into his full power, Dooku while Stomping Kenobi had Skywalker lying on his ass completely helpless for like 10seconds.
After that it completely changed. But there was that.