ANH duel might have the weakest moves, but it's combatants have the best voices of the entire saga!

Even without the prequels, the final duel between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan in A New Hope looks pretty weak. It's slower and not as flashy as we know a lightsaber duel can be. The one thing that makes it great is that both the people dueling have the best voices in film history, James Earl Jones and Sir Alec Guinness. JEJ's incredibly deep bass voice is awesome without the electronic filtering and Guinness has a timbre and a quality that Ewan can't imitate. Mark Hamill was no match vocally for Jones in the the following two movies. TPM's duel was silent all the way through and AotC had the Christopher Lee's magnificent sound, but neither Ewan, Hayden and Yoda could come close to that. So, while the fighting in the other movies may be be better and bad-ass, if you just listened, nothing can top: "When I left you, I was but the learner, now I am the master!" "Only a master of evil Darth!" and "Your powers are weak old man!", "You can't win Darth. If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!"

 

I agree The duel also contains some of the most iconic lines of dialogue in the series, including the ones that you quoted in your post.

"The circle is now complete."

 

I agree. Just the way they hold themselves. OB1 knows he can't win, but keeps going. It's just great.



But ESB was better.......

 

Actually - from a fencing standpoint... there is some nice exchanges going on there. It is no TPM duel, but it isn't shabby either...

 

The lines truly are some of the best. But the duel is good too, because the ANH duel is the only "realistic" one. Meaning that every move is intended to eliminate the opponent, or defend one's self.
The TMP duel is mostly just "movie moves", and half the time the guys are attacking each other's saber, not the actual person.

 

Eh, who cares. TPM just looks cooler.





And that's what really matters lol

 

I agree... it must look cool

TPM Duel
Coolness Factor: 90%

AOTC Duel
Coolness Factor: 86%

ANH Duel
Coolness Factor: 63%

TESB Duel
Coolness Factor: 78%

ROTJ Duel
Coolness Factor: 82%

 

I think ANH is the second best duel of all the saga, mainly because of the lines. However, I like the slow pace of the fight.

The top duel is Yoda vs. Dooku (I believe), cause it has great dialogue too and superb action as well.

 

My top duel will always be Vader and Luke in ESB

 

The ANH duel is severely underrated! It always seems less cool in memory than it is in reality.

And the moves are pretty quick for two old men!

I rate it higher than the ROTJ duel, which has some bad choreography in the end, and in pure saber-time, is not much longer than the ANH duel.

 

The ANH duel is the best duel of the saga because it is "real". It's full of emotion and and as one poster put it "they are trying to hit each other nother just their sabers". They are old but then one must take into account that either man had used their lightsaber in a duel in over 20 years so of cousre you will see rust but it still the cornerstone of lightsaber battles.

Having cool moves and flash technique in a lightsaber battle is nothing if it doesn't tell a story which ANH did.

 

Again I said the ANH duel was the best in terms of VOICES. Any issue dealing with choreography and moves is open to endless debate.

 

I agree with Plo_Koen and Ninja_Gayden -- the ANH duel is extremely underrated.

I wonder how many of the people who are criticizing it have actually watched it recently. The economy of moves and the lack of grandstanding are fitting for a rematch between two mature characters who have a long history. This allows the viewer to appreciate the subtlety of the interaction between the two characters - both in their offensive and defensive lightsaber blows, as well as in their dialog.

I would be very disappointed if anything was done to "spice up" the level of action in this duel - it would be superfluous.

 

Each of the duels in the Saga is cool in a different way. The ANH is definitely the least flashy, but possibly the most realistic.

 

ANH falls short in physicality. But IMO, it more than makes up for it with psychology.

You can really sense the history and tension between them. Of coruse Ep. 3 will flesh this out completely, but I think after that duel, this one will be even heavier with that psychology and tension.

 

I think the duel between Vader and old Ben is the best in every way--moves, realism, voices, you name it. Very, very well done!

 

I love the fact that Obi-Wan (Sir Alec) sounds like an old wizard when he says, "If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." It really feels like a fantasy movie.

 

Ahah.
Remember in ANH, when Obi-Wan does a little spin.
It was so slow, Vader could have slapped him silly.
But the Original Trilogy duels look not as good as the prequel trilogy, but c'mon Nick Gillard was like a kid at the time.


OT duels=no fancy saber tricks, more meaning and depth, not as fast as TPM. Art of parrying seems okay.
Blocking seems standard especially blaster shots.

PT duels= Quick impressive techniques, they finally know how to do quick-fancy spins right and nicely
, more fancy saber tricks. The way Jedi fight are a combination of offensive and defensive, they block laser shots and are able to attack at the same time.

 

The ANH duel is like a chess game with swords. No wasted moves, nothing but careful precision. You can see how cautious Vader can be here; Obi-Wan is not somebody he thinks lightly of, as you can see later in the series when he fights Luke almost frivolously- one-arming him all over the place, attacking when he feels like it, using "big" attacks (for which he's wounded, albeit lightly) etc.
By ROTJ, however, Luke is taken seriously by Vader, who's back to his old precision. Notice how he employs almost no "big" moves here? He's assuming Luke knows how to take advantage of these by now.
And when Luke defeats Vader? It may look unrefined, but watch Luke's "wild" swings. Most of these seem to be aimed directly at Vader's head. Wild & unaimed, my arse.