Hmph. I’d read about WWII. You may be right, rjung. Mighta been WWII movies with dogfights, not the real deal. I respectfully withdraw the correction till I can find cite. 
As for the dogfights I think sequence of the Falcon escaping from the Death Star and being attacked by TIE fighters is based on footage from B-17s fighting off German fighters.
If you want to see a great cinematic sword fight, well spear fight actually, watch The Hidden Fortress. Lucas credits this film as being a major influence on Star Wars and in fact the speeder bike chase is based on a scene from this movie.
I also think the duels in episodes I-III are a bit too active. Not too mention that things that should have happened didn’t.
In the Mace/Emperor duel, I feel, that it should have ended with Anikin changing to the dark side by picking up Mace and throwing him out the window. This would tie into him throwing the Emperor in VI.
In the final Ani/Obi battle, well there is so much wrong there but I think to tie the films together it needed two things. Instead of “Ani don’t! I have the high ground” which was silly because it’s been shown over and over that the high ground is meaningless in light saber duels. instead he should have taken the calm position that he takes in part IV. Ani charges full of rage and Obi make julien fries out of him. This way, if you watch the films in order you see the death of Obi-wan in a new light. Vader thinks, I know how to handle this and poof! OWK vanishes.
Also I think that after he was cut up Ani should have had a light side moment and he gives his light saber to Obi and asks him to give it to his child and to not tell his child that he turned evil. Then he should have been told by the Emperor that Padme was dead before the suit and Ani just wants to die but the Emp puts him in the suit and makes him live as Darth Vader.
But that’s just me.
No, that would be hilarious, actually.
“Luke… I must confess yet another thing about myself. I… I have a nasty habit of throwing people off very high places.”
“I have no control. I keep eating and eating!”
Ok, that makes no sense.
Nah. I think Lucas failed to show how much of a badass the chosen one really is by having Obi-Wan knock him out with little difficulty. What should have happened is an amazing display of power from Anakin, but it proves too much for him to handle (say, he is distracted/consumed by his hatred or his fear of Padme dying… whatever) and it backfires. For example, by pure mind control he could have tried to bring down the house, all the machinery in the surrounding area, to crush Obi-Wan. He is much more powerful than he knows, specially as the dark side has given him “special powers”, and is impaled by a big chunk of metal or burnt by falling lava. Or… because it is nice to think Obi-Wan is responsible for the suit, Anakin could have fought Obi-Wan as he tries to manipulate his surroundings (no stopping for mind control business, as he did in ESB) and, again, is overwhelmed with power/anger that Obi-Wan takes advantage and cuts him off.
You have to realize, if someone defeats a badass, he automatically becomes a bigger badass. It’s that simple. Obi-Wan should have gotten lucky. Also, think about it. Yoda tells Obi-Wan he isn’t strong enough to defeat Palpatine, but from the movie we get the impression Anakin is far stronger than the Emperor. So, that would make Obi-Wan stronger than 1) Anakin, 2) Palpatine, and 3) Yoda. That cannot be!
Had he repented, that would have shown his good side. Bad guys aren’t good. I like the idea of not wanting to live, though, and being forced to.
All awesome ideas!
Since Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan are my favorite Jedis, I have to step in here and defend Obi-Wan.
First, Ani might be the most powerful force user in the galaxy, but that doesn’t mean he’s the smartest, most skilled or most experienced.
Plus, Obi-Wan is his teacher. They’ve been more or less constant companions for years, and innumerable hours of training exercises. That line, “I’ve got the high ground” probably has different meanings, and you can take it how you want. But, Obi-Wan also meant it literally. I imagine many times in the past while sparring, Obi-Wan has gotten the high ground on cocky, irrational & emotional little Ani, and Ani thinks he can pull off “that move.” Well, maybe with enough practice someday he might be able to pull off “that move.” But right then he was full of rage, full of all that cocky “I’m a Master of the Dark Side now, I can kick your ass.”
Obi-Wan gave him fair warning. “Don’t try it Ani, I always hand you your ass when you do.” But he tried it anyway.
It makes sense that years later, Vader says to Obi-Wan, “when last we met, you were the master,” because Obi-Wan pretty much showed him that he was still the master, despite Palpatine filling his head with all this "Lord Vader, Sith Master crap.
One of the biggest problems I have with Episode 1 (and God knows I have a ton of them) is Darth Maul’s double-bladed saber. I’m wondering how in God’s name he managed to learn to use that thing without killing himself. Ray Park uses it like a staff a good part of the time, but there’s a lot of things you just can’t do with a massless weapon that cuts through anything it touches that you could do with a wooden stick.
Also, the fight in Empire is better than the one in Jedi.
Let’s plug Clone Wars again. The display of Jedi powers and lightsaber duels in that series were far and away more interesting, consistent, and well staged than in any of the films. Particularly tragic is Grevious, who in Clone Wars is an absolute chilling badass: a proud warrior with an insanely awesome fighting style (best of the entire series). In the movies, he’s a throwaway character played as a coward who can’t duel to save his life: he has one SINGLE dumbass gimmick (the spinning rotor move) and then gets his ass handed to him quickly and easily. Even the shots where characters faces were shown against flashes of lightsaber, the moves were clear and stylistic (like the Dooku/Grevious training).
As to the relative skill levels, for one thing, you have to remember that these fights are not Dragon Ball Z. They aren’t determined by exact matchups of “power levels.” Real fights definately are determined by skill, but they are also still very situational: with all the zillions of wrong moves to be made in different situations, even mediocre fighters can sometimes catch a good opening and win over a master. Anakin gets the drop on Mace, case in point.
That said, the producers did say that Anakin, Yoda, Mace, and Palpatine are the only 4 on the same level, with Obi-Wan down a step. And in the actual movies, the comparison is even more laughable: Obi-Wan can barely even perturb Dooku, much less provide him with a fight, while Anakin tears Dooku to shreds pretty easily. So how can Obi-Wan possibly stand up to Anakin?
Most WWII movies with dogfights were real dogfights. No CGI, and using models took time. But guncamera footage was cheap.
I’m gonna get the Clone Wars cartoon DVD.
My problem with he fighting styles has to do with the weight of the weapon. I’ve aways assumed that the “light” part of the lightsaber was weightless and if this is true than that should have a profound effect on the fighting style chosen by the wielder. Think of a braveheart-type sword and note that its center of balance is far away from the hilt. Conversely, a rapier-type blade has its center of balance closer to the hilt. The blade’s center of balance and its overall weight are two big factors that determine the best way to fight with it. A lightsaber, to my mind, would feel like holding a flashlight and would feel very maneuverable, closer to something like an edged rapier.
Because of this, it seems odd to me that a person would choose to use a two-handed grip at all, and these long, grand, overhead strikes we see in the movies are really quite inefficent. A lightsaber should be wielded more like rapier, and consequently the porper fighting style for it is more akin to fencing; blows that score points in fencing cause mortal injuries with a lightsaber.
Yeah, I know - it doesn’t make for good cinema.
My background is on Filipino Kali, and we employ short, lightweight blades and sticks that are rather maneuverable. When we sparred a primary target was the opponent’s sword-hands, for a an opponent who cannot hold his blade cannot strike you with it. The one thing the movies did correctly, IMO, is show lots of sword-hands getting cut off. That suggests at least an elementary understanding of how to best employ the weapon.
In regards to Obi Wan vs. Anikan, I’d like to relate an anecdotal story I picked up from a retired Air Force instructor pilot I met at a dinner I attended this spring.
Basically, he was involved in a program where they trained the best pilots from all these different nations, and by far the best student pilot he ever had was this fellow from Jordan. Given how politics were/are in the Middle East, they both acknowledged that they might find eachother on opposite sides in the future, so the instructor pilot allways joked about how he’d teach the student “Every trick I know except one, so I can save that for later.” The idea being that, should they ever find eachother on opposite ends of an air battle, the instructor could allways have that one trick up his sleeve the student wouldn’t know how to counter, no matter how much more natural skill he had.
So, to make a long story into a relevant point, Obi Wan had taugh Anikan just about everything he knew, having been responsible for his training since he was knee high to a duck. No matter how much more natural skill that Ani may have had over Obi, Obi Wan simply knew all of Anikan’s tricks cause he had TAUGHT them to Anikan. Thus, Obi-Wan, while not being as powerful as the Emporer, and not as powerful as Anikan, was uniquely capable of takin Anikan down.
Now, in regards to the balance of Braveheart style weapons (Claymores, if I’m not talking out of my ass) the balance would still be fairly close to the hilt. They just make the hilt longer and heavier to compensate for the blade. Though I suppose you COULD make the blade just that much bigger than the hilt proportionally speaking, it wouldn’t make for a very good sword, nor would it make for a very good axe (which is pretty much that balancing idea to an extreme)
Was I the only person watching RotS and thought that when Ani caught on fire he would look up at Obi and say.
“All right! We’ll call it a draw.”
To be perfectly honest my thought at that point was “Holy Jesus those Midichlorians are flammable!”