Discussion Light Saber Duels - OT or PT style?

PT style, but even better, so something more along the lines of The Clone Wars and The Old Republic.

If there was something like the Darth Sidious vs. Darth Maul and Savage Opress duel in The Clone Wars episode, The Lawless, I would be amazed. Because if it looks amazing animated, imagine how amazing it would look if it wasn't animated.

 

Seconded. That is one impressive lightsaber duel.

 

Thirded.

Whoever devised the many and increasingly complex and breathtaking duels in TCW them should be consulted for the new films. They had great imagination that could be utilised by the marshall art experts and choreographers.

Also what would be good would be some distinctive fighting moves (like Anakin's trick he used to cut off Dooku's hands then tried again against Obi Wan but failed).

 

Fourth!

One my favorite moments from TCW

 

Definitely more like the animated series and TOR trailers, what both eras were lacking were interesting forces of the force in a duel.

 

Ugh... All that does is remind me how much contempt I have for TCW in general and mindless hyperchoreographed lightsaber fights. Give me Hound vs The Mountain from Game of Thrones instead of this fecal matter.

 

It's a damn fine duel.
Love the moment when Sidious turns around mid-air and just pulls 'em down with him. Great stuff.

 

Are there any other TCW lightsaber duels that have earned a lot of respect?

 

There are other great ones, too, but I don't recall specific examples offhand. This one may have been the best though, even if just to see Palpatine laughing while treating Maul and Savage like a pair of ragdolls.

 

I personally would say (1) Obi Wan vs Maul and Savage and (2) Maul vs Pre-Vizla.

Others know more about TCW than me.

 

A lightsaber and a lightshield!
Bring on the Sith Legionnaire!

 

Exactly! I want more character development, JJ and crew! As my dad said when we left AOTC, give me more plot, less special effects...

 

Mixture... Old characters should fight OT style and strong in the Force young characters should be like Obi vs Maul in TPM.

 

There will be no duels because the Sith were destroyed in Return of the Jedi.

Just joking.

Now that the prequels exist (unfortunately for many), of course the duels are going to be more dinamic and havily choreographed. This doesn't mean they are going to be as dumb as the Anakin / Obi Wan or the one with Grevious (Dear lord . . .). Lucas was so brilliant that he went dumb the other way around in Epidode 1 when he had the 2 jedi fighting a tatooed freak no one cares about who had almost no lines or agenda besides revealing himself to the jedi and having revenge.

When you have your main characters jumping around, 2 inches from lava, destroying everything around them, humping on cgi dinosaurs, the action becomes dumb and you get bored. There's nothing at stake so the conflict gets instantly eliminated.

As you can tell I'm a Original Trilogy freak, but hey, I also understand that those old duels feel like watching Luke's landspeeder approaching Mos Eisley, they a re a TAD dated.

I'm confident Abrams will manage something engaging, making you care for the character and not making them do impossible things. Movie jedi shouldn't feel like videogame jedi.

 

Agree but also why not be greedy - more special effects and more plot!

 

I'd say that in terms of style, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon vs. Maul is the best. Generally, it's filmed far enough away so you can actually see what's going on (having a martial artist rather than a geriatric as the villain helped), and there's just enough flippy-do flair to generate visual interest, but it still tells a story. The initial post-Qui-Gon death rush by Obi-Wan is one of my favorite sequences of the entire series, and it's by far the best of the PT.

In terms of actual story telling, the classic Luke vs. Vader from ESB is far and away the best. The silhouettes, the blue vs. red, Vader holding off Luke's frightened and weak offense with one hand, Vader toying with him with the telekinetics, Luke scoring a hit on the ledge/bridge thing. It's just magnificently done.

So, combine that with a touch of the impressive acrobatics and speed of the Maul fight, film it far enough away from the side, without jarring cuts, so we can see what's going on, and I'll be happy.

 

Yeah, the Maul vs. Vizsla duel was definitely one of the best in the series, because it was so awesome seeing a non-force sensitive managing to almost beat a Sith Lord. I'd really like to see a bounty hunter have a battle like that in the ST, but maybe with a Jedi instead, like the Obi-Wan and Quinlan Vos vs. Cad Bane duel, which was another awesome duel from TCW.

 

I thought that EP IV had slower lightsaber fights because Obi Wan was old and Vader was limited. Vader was still limited in ESB and ROTJ. Luke was trained by Yoda but he wasn't trained in a temple doing lightsabers all day, so Luke was limited too making ESB and ROTJ slower as well. If there are young people in EP VII that are properly trained then why not faster PT style? It's like learning another language, you aren't good at it unless you train day in and day out and practice.

 

Lightsaber battles should look like this...

(Warning: Language...)

(...like seriously, language warning...)

 

I'd love a combination of the two style of fighting.

 

ok really? i mean really? can anyone who cares for star wars truthfully say he would prefer the swordfights like in the old movies (OT)??

i mean sorry but this swordfighting in the PT is the ONLY reason anyone can enjoy those movies. Ofc the effects are better and some alien is more vivid done in 3D then with a mask/puppet but the rest....
well i dont want to get a discussion going about OT vs PT but matter of fact is, that the fights in E4 sucked. Old men, doing old stunts....MAN THESE ARE JEDI AND SITH! Normally they jump around, augment their speed and do incredible stunts and everything. In every book i read they mostly "feel" the movement of their enemy like Obi vs Ani in E3...its just all so fast, a normal beeing cant even follow.....in E4-6 its like he swings left, he swings right...wow....thats not awesome. Y ofc to see a lightsaber is awesome and the OT will forever be awesome, too. But the fights have to be like E1-3. and someone above me said : "not like a dance" but it is exactly that....sooften i see those fights described in the books as "light dance, seem to be in trance, to fast to see, a swirl of light" those descriptions would describe PT..and the one and only thing i had nothing bad to say about was those lightsaber fights E1-3...heck, they are the only reason i watch those movies over and over in the first place.

 

There was no "normally Jedi and Sith do this and that" back in 1977! There was no mention about the force augmenting reflexes, muscle tone, speed and so on.

 

y you are right...and cause i know how it tricky it is to mask a good saber..i only can imagin how tricky it must have been 1977 and without much money..so i bet lucas sat there and said: what the effects are that expensive?!...nono, let them stand around a bit more, then it will be cheaper to do!" ^^
joke

but now in 2013 i think it should be clear that those fighting standards could never be set down after seeing E1-3 you know?
and truthfully even without the whole expandet universe and the 8? lightsaberforms and stuff i would have prefered some younger ones to do fights like in E1. the endfight vs maul was very nice. good speed but not this totally syncronic fighting Ani and Obi showed in E3 (ofc they trained yoears together, it had to look like this)

 

Couldn't have said it better myself KevinM1

Although i also love the emotion fuelled duel from RotJ

Character driven duels in a slightly toned down PT style? How does that sound?