Isn’t it already ruined? Didn’t they electronically / CGI remove the nipples?
watch some of Jackie Chan’s old movies. the choreography is much better, but he might not qualify as sane.
True. But in this particular case the swords we see on screen are actually a CGI effect. So it should have been possible to set up much more realistic fight scenes with some safe props and let the actors really hack away at each other.
shutupshutupshutupshutup
My problem with the lightsaber fights is not the stage combat techniques of the fight, it’s the overly flashy moves that put the user at dramatic risk of flaming/scorching/slashing oneself. It’s one thing to twirl a bo staff around and pin it up behind your arm. It’s quite another to do the same move with a double-bladed laser sword that cuts everything it touches. One could argue they use the force to be that precise with their moves, but it’s a bit fanwanky.
Look at the swordfight in Jedi, where Luke and Vader are going at it pretty hard. There’s lots of flashing blades, but the blades remain well away from the user’s body. Vs some of the moves in the prequels, where they don’t seem to believe the blades can cut the user.
This was actually addressed in the novels of the movies. The reason they give is that Jedi and Sith are the only ones who use light sabers, so saber vs. saber techniques have fallen out of style among Jedi with more focus being given to techniques that work better against blasters. The book claimed that Dooku was the first to seriously study the fencing style in hundreds of years, which is why he is able to easily hand two experienced Jedi their asses in a two on one battle. Yoda only beat him because of his superior speed and mobility.
Another vote for “it’s stage fighting people”. The vid is quite funny, but the fact it looks fake when slowed down and analysed is irrelevant. It’s meant to give the illusion of fighting when played at normal speed, and is the only thing I can think of in TPM that was done well.
Maybe not, anything soft enough would tend to bend as it was swung around.
noooooooooooo!
It isn’t a fanwank it is the official explanation of why only jedi and sith use lightsabers, without the precognition force ability grants you it is pretty much a guarantee you’ll decapitate yourself. The only time in the movies we see a non force sensitive using one it is very carefully as a cutting tool, even in the Clone Wars show everytime a non force sensitive tries to fight with one they get their ass handed to them.
On the Luke and Vader fights, ROTJ is only time Luke is even half way decent and even then you can assume his technique is pretty bad. Its obvious in ESB that Vader is just playing along.
An aside but if Lucas had a real cinematic bone in his body he would have given us a lightsaber duel in one of the following locations:
1.Total darkness
2.The rain
3.Thick overgrown jungle.
Actually, that’s one of the things done right. Remember the old rule of thumb “show, don’t tell”? That’s exactly what Lucas did here. Instead of exposition, we see Qui-Gon use the break to rest, showing his inner peace and Light Side. Darth Maul paces back and forth, totally overcome by his emotions and the Dark Side. We get to see their characters without them telling us.
Bullshit. They don’t need to even things out. They need to apprehend this sith and find out where he came from. At this point, the Sith were thought to be eliminated. And since there’s always a master and apprentice, the best course of action would have been to capture Darth Maul, and find out out who he was working with.
How do you do that? You send all your Jedi after him! At this point in the story, there are 20-30 Jedi in the area. Send them all and capture him. This isn’t a gentlemen’s dual. There is no need for a fair fight.
You wanna take out Bin Laden? You send an elite force in to catch him off guard. You don’t send a single cop and his apprentice.
Had they done this - game over. Jedi win. Annie stays a slave on Tatooine and dies in a fiery pod racer crash.
Yes. Never thought I’d be defending TPM, but you are right on the money here. The barrier also serves the purpose of isolating Qui-Gon from Obi-Wan.
This pisses me the fuck off. Lucas, why did you have to make Yoda a jumping monkey?!? Da Fuck you thinking?
Yoda is a great and powerful Jedi. He doesn’t need to flip around with a lightsaber. Yoda from 4,5&6 could have given Dooku a disappointed sigh and crushed him with his mind. Of all the ways he managed to ruin his original movies, this was one of the worst.
There are? Thats funny cuz we saw Maul on two planets, neither of which the jedi knew he would be on. Tattoine which is ruled by the Hutts where the jedi have no law enforcement power, and Naboo where they aren’t officially supposed to be they were basically doing a covert mission for the chancellor.
Another common complaint is that the jedi flip flop on training Anakin, they don’t it is just that once they confirmation sith are running around they are scared and basically have no choice. If they refuse what are the chances the sith will snap him up?
And this is why General Grievous could actually have been a pretty scary villain (and was in the Clone Wars cartoon). He can use lightsabers with as much or more proficiency than most Jedi, but not because he’s able to use the Force; instead he has the computational capacity to accurately keep track of where the blade is, and in fact do the same for up to four blades. He has a thorough understanding of lightsaber qualities and fighting styles and has the natural super strength that comes with an artificial body.
In short, he’s evidence that technology can be as good or better than [del]magic[/del] the Force, and that’s a threat to an order that relies on the Force for superior fighting ability. If it’s no longer superior, what good are they?
Unfortunately, this subtext is kind of mangled by how Grievous died. Not only because Obi-Wan exploited his remaining organic parts, but because he did so by shooting Grievous with an ‘uncivilized’ blaster. I suppose it still works in that it shows that being a Jedi is still better than simply being a mechanical master with lightsabers, but it’s still an odd message.
Well, I can accept the explanation that saber to saber techniques aren’t in high practice, but they don’t need that as an explanation for why Dooku was so good. Dooku was a Jedi Master turned Sith, higher ranked than Obi-wan never mind the Padawan Skywalker. He is much more experienced, much further trained, and doesn’t limit himself to Jedi rules any more.
It still sounds fanwanky. “I can hold this glowing laser thingy exactly like someone would hold a stick, where the stick would be in contact with their body, but because I have the Force I can detect just how close I really am and magically not touch anything and cut it off/set it on fire.” I grant you, they are pretty dangerous and you’d pretty much need to be a force sensitive to use it with any skill and not risk self-inflicted injury. But this is a step beyond that. It’s willfully doing moves that with a solid object would be making contact with the body but somehow aren’t.
You know I say that, but honestly I haven’t seen the movies since they came out. I may need to refresh my memory and see if I am misremembering.
I agree that Vader is toying with Luke in Empire. Luke is much better in Jedi, though not pulling off moves like some of the prequels, but that is a reasonable explanation that he just doesn’t have that much training. Vader isn’t doing as much as Luke, though, but still manages to mostly control the fight, at least until Luke releases the rage. I still think the fighting style is different, and much more sensible.
And we won’t speak of Ben and Vader’s confrontation in Ep IV.
(Oh my god, horrid thought. Lucas does a new edit of Ep IV, with Pogo Obi-wan. :smack: )
Pogo Vader!
That scene always puzzled me-always seemed like Obi Wan dissolves before Vader’s saber-stroke. Was I seeing things?
Practically speaking the only prop you can use that will work is a long staff, and if you get hit with it, it’s going to hurt.
Rule #1 in stage combat is safety. Rules #2 through #1,718 are also safety. Safety is paramount. If you don’t observe safety, people get hurt, sometimes quite badly.
And if you know how to film stuff it doesn’t really matter when viewed at normal speed.
Heck, they could have used styrofoam. Or even run down to Toys-R-Us and got some wiffle bats. Everyone was wearing a full costume. Just teach them enough technique to avoid hitting each other in the face and let them go at it. They could have chopped away at each other’s arms, legs, and torsos all day and nobody’s getting hurt.