"Even before The Force Awakens hit theaters, director J.J. Abrams told us to expect something more along the lines of what we saw rather than highly skilled duels. He called them "primitive" and "aggressive and rougher" than their predecessors, less about skill and more about emotion."
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I don't get it. They didn't make much sense as FIGHTS... they did kinda make sense as a lightsaber dances. The twirling and swirling doesn't make any sense with a lethal weapon like that.
I don't see Sam swirling and twirling his pistols in the Hateful 8 or Pulp Fiction. Reminds me of that wonderful scene in Tombstone where Ringo (played by Michael Biehn) tries to show how good he his with pistols by doing all this twirling with his guns. And Doc Holiday (Val Kilmer) then makes fun of him by doing a similar twirling with his metal whiskey cup...
That's what this debate is about to me when it comes to the lightsaber fights: Ringo (PT) vs. Doc Holiday (OT and TFA). Another western reference to add to this is from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: when you wanna shoot, shoot, don't talk. Or... if you wanna fight, fight. Don't twirl and swirl.
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Last edited by queeq on Jan 19th, 2016 at 09:11 PM
Those "boring" original trilogy duels actually looked like, you know, duels.
Not choreographed dancing.
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This is all going back to discussions we had 15 years ago about the prodding...
But I still like the PT fights. The Maul fight and the first half of the Obi-Wan/Anakin fight (before it lost its oomf when it went to a CG outside arena) are fantastic. I'm not really on-board with the twirly criticism- it's just an element of style (and that gif of them twirling at each other is a poor criticism- that's part of a style duel, and trying to criticise sabre duels as unrealistic is plain silly). I've liked sword twirling ever since it was Connor's signature style in Highlander.
They are immensely well choreographed and highly skilled. The FA fight was not at all bad- in the same way I liked the Windu duel as something different, this one had a lot of physicality to it- but I didn't like it as much as those on those PT ones and I don't agree with Abrams at all about that approach being wrong. I think people are over-doing this 'dancing' metaphor- Maul was like that, and that;s fine as his signature,, but when Obi-Wan and Anakin go at it, the odd twist around does not make it dancing; it's just very fast swordplay. It still amazes me.
In fact, one of the biggest issues with the PT fights is not the fights themselves but how badly cut they are with other material- they work much better viewed as a whole, which you can do on Youtube (though that does accentuate the Obi-Wan-Anakin duel losing pace).
So- I am all on board with the new films doing the fights differently- it's good to have a distinct style and these aren't all super-trained masters etc.- but I think it is a shame to see the PT fights being trashed on some of the grounds I have seen. I rate them as a great achievement. I'm actually hoping it will go a bit more in that direction in the next two films.
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It's the same way I have always liked the stylised posing in The Matrix, no matter how silly it is, practically speaking, I bring this in because this comes back to the topic. Rey is able to beat Kylo (and him being injured does make a big difference of course) because she is basically doing a Neo from The Matrix. She's special. She knows how to do things without training. They set that up throughout the film. It's kinda the point.
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Last edited by Ushgarak on Jan 19th, 2016 at 09:28 PM
Twirling sword fights are fine, just watch any Chinese kung fu movie. But when the highly polished and stylistic choreography feels like an attempt to cover up the lack of humanity and soul in the characters and the entire film, then the attempt shines out the shittier.
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That's a criticism I'd make for the AOTC fights. But I find that hard to understand at all for the others- I was very emotionally involved with them. I found the tension leading up to Qui-Gon's death to be immense- a good use of visuals and music, preceded by the pause in the fight with the visual behaviour of all three fighters being a great statement of their personalities- the sort of character moment that TPM needed a lot more of. If a criticism of TPM is its poor character portrayal (not an issue for TFA), I personally think the lightsabre fight is one of the few bits that gets that right, so for me it seems the opposite of what you say.
And again, you are saying 'twirly fights'- they are mostly just good swordplay. There's nowhere near as much wushu etc as people seem to make out- that was really just Maul's thing. And Yoda, but I'm not really rating that.
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Last edited by Ushgarak on Jan 19th, 2016 at 11:32 PM
Hey if you're emotionally invested that's great. But I feel nothing for the characters and their motivations, so I feel nothing for their fights and their deaths. That moment where Maul and Kenobi stare each other down though was pretty cool. Until it gave way to the rest of the stale, boring swordfight.
And sure, the swordplay is good. It's choreography, it looks cool. But I don't care if it's cool if I don't care about the people making it look cool. But that aside, there's too many moments that look... timed, and careful, and planned. They're flawless, but that makes it feel fake and empty.
Remember when Dooku taunted Anakin during RotS about his anger? And Anakin gives him an angry, determined look, raises his saber above his head and... just sort of attacks him the same way as before: carefully timed and positioned with every swing, but slightly faster, I guess? To show that he's angry? I otherwise kinda like that fight since it's one of the more subdued and understated of the prequels, (not as much of the twirly whirly/jump-happy stuff) but even it has this polished perfectness to its movements that I just don't like. When Vader taunted Luke, Luke snapped and just wailed on him like his sword was a club. I bought that emotion, it felt real. Mad-face Anakin and his sexy, highly-stylized choreography does nothing for me.
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Hmm, well I don't see the fights as looking any more timed or careful than, say, the TFA fight. They're just in what I see as a better style.
And if you didn't care about the characters in the first place, fair enough- but that begs the question, if you DID care about the characters, would you like the PT style?
Luke wailing on Vader is an awesome moment- again, backed well by the music; that moment and the minutes afterwards are the high point of ROTJ and I am not for one moment denying that decent character involvement makes fights better. But I'm honestly not that big on the sabre fight leading up to it (ESB was better). In comparison, I think the exchange of blows between Obi-Wan and Maul after the staredown is the best few moments of sabre duelling in the entire franchise. It's a fantastically designed series of blows (using both blade and body), I am well into Obi-Wan's anger, and Maul's cocky taunting is bang on as well.
That polished perfection for me is straight- perfection in the sense of being very good indeed.
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Last edited by Ushgarak on Jan 20th, 2016 at 08:03 AM