Anyone else think "The Duel" was going to be better?

Am I the only one who wasn't that impressed with the lightsaber battle between Yoda and Sidious? The parts where Sidious is trying to fry Yoda with Sith lightning and using his force powers to send those pods at Yoda and Yoda using his own force powers to counter Sidious, looks great but the actual lightsaber fighting part just didn't seem that impressive with Yoda like a spinning Sonic the Hedgehog and Sidious looking like he was trying to swat a fly.

 

Am I the only one who wasn't that impressed with the lightsaber battle between Yoda and Sidious? The parts where Sidious is trying to fry Yoda with Sith lightning and using his force powers to send those pods at Yoda and Yoda using his own force powers to counter Sidious, looks great but the actual lightsaber fighting part just didn't seem that impressive with Yoda like a spinning Sonic the Hedgehog and Sidious looking like he was trying to swat a fly.

Star Wars Fans are impossible to please. That's all I can make of all this complaining about the duels. What were you expecting? How would you have made these duels?

New thread: "Did anyone else think that fan response to "The Duel" was going to contain less bitching?"

 

LOL Myke1138. It should have looked more real indeed! Because you know, Yoda is real.

 

New thread: "Did anyone else think that fan response to "The Duel" was going to contain less bitching?"




Nope, I know i waited since i was a kid to see this duel , and i am appalled how many people complain about it. It was never really about flashy moves ,or more choreography. it was supposed to be about a Master and apprentice,Loss of trust,watching someone you love go down a dark road.all that good stuff. it was to be emotional as well as visual ,at least that is what thought . but this sadly is lost on sooo many little TFN users.

 

, that's good!. I expect that some people forget that it is a movie, and should not be the defining moment of your life. though it was a defining moment for SW in general.

 

yeah that would have been great if they had real laser swords and actually cut off Hayden's arms and burnt him alive. HAHAH Best duel of the whole series, couldn't ask for much more, It has the emotion of Luke vs Vader in ESB and ROTJ and the skill of Maul vs Obi Wan. It is a duel that needs repeated watching because of its epic scope and quick pace. I love all aspects of it. so no it couldn't have been better...unless I was paid 1 million no wait 100 million dollars.

 

By the way Myke, I'm getting the IMHO thing...hardy har

 

people who complain about THE DUEL are the very reason the simpsons have a gomic book guy. plain and simple, you can never please some fans, they love to bitch, and piss all over themselves. just watch the damn movie, the duel was fine.

yoda looking real? LOL, mini me could have played him, and done a damn good job of it as well.

 

I just read someone saying the words didn't cut deeper then the lightsabers.
Sure they hardly talked during the duel but, Obi's speech at the end was powerful. Simply powerful. I found his emotion to cut deeper to the heart then a swordplay fight. It was amazing visually in my opinion. A fight on a volcanic planet with lightsabers between brothers? I've never heard this before in the history of cinema. Lucas did an amazing job on this fight and I'm sorry to hear all these people degrade it.

 

I think it was amazing. The dialogue was great and it was really powerful on screen, seeing two brothers fighting each other.

 

THE Duel was great. The dialogue before and after gave the action a level of emotional intensity that I didn't think was possible.

 

people who complain about THE DUEL are the very reason the simpsons have a gomic book guy. plain and simple, you can never please some fans, they love to bitch, and piss all over themselves. just watch the damn movie, the duel was fine.

VaderFanDan here (aka Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons) -

The biggest problem with the duel was the end of it. Horrible. I know it has it's own thread here and everything,
but the "I have the high ground" thing was just terrible. The dialog wasn't goo either. Not until after it was over anyway. (If you want ot hear some good dialog during the duel, play the video game on PS2 or X-BOX.
The dialog is much better! And the ALTERNATE ending rules!)

But then again, the ends of almost all the duels of the PT have been pretty lame.
Maul beating Qui Gon, Obi Wan beating Maul, Anakin losing his arm to Dooku, Dooku & Yoda,
Anakin chopping off Dooku's hands, GG & Obi Wan, Yoda & Sidious...

What happened to the dramatic sense of "Something's about to happen..."

In ANH - The pause, the look towards Luke, Obi Wan closing his eyes, raising the saber, slow motion,
(you knew SOMETHNING was about to happen), THEN the fatal strike by Vader. That's good stuff!

In the PT, it all happens so quick that if you blink you'll miss it. There's no build up.
It's just duel, duel, duel, DONE! In the duels where that's not the case, the end is just dumb.
Obi Wan beating Maul in TPM (for example) was just as stupid as "I have the high ground."

VFD

 

why would you want to associate yourself with comic book guy?

anyways, the duels were fine. in the words of ice T on chapelle's show..................

HATE!
HATE!
HATE!
HATE!
HATE!
HATE!
HATE!
HATE!
HATE! HATE! HATE!............................HATE!.


OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH MAN!

 

Personally, I have no "bitch" about The Duel. It was good, but not the best (IMHO). I agree with you that the duel is extremely emotional (more so in the novel than the movie)...But I disagree with you when you state "...it was never really about flashy moves or choreography." IMHO, the Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan vs Darth Maul was by far the best duel of the saga because of the following: Maul is fighting a talented Jedi Knight (recognized as a great Jedi Master in ROTS by Yoda) and a gifted Padawan (who would be selected to sit on the Jedi Council)...Maul is fighting 2 Jedi and giving them all they can handle and then some...The ferocity Maul fights with...The intensity of Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan...The fighting style and choreography all blended together for an incredible duel.

Again, I think the spoilers I read gave me an unrealistic expectation. I didn't walk away from the theater thinking, "...wow, that duel was amazing." As a matter of fact, the sequence that made me utter the phrase "holy ----" was Palpatine's leap, hurl & twirl towards 4 Jedi Masters. This will probably sound stupid but my favorite part of The Duel was when Obi & Ani stood directly in front of each other twirling their sabers around one another. We'd never seen anything like that before.

Bottom line, we knew what the outcome was. To me it was just a little anti-climatic and disjointed. Watching Sidious get busy with his light saber for the first time was much more interesting. (IMHO of course).

For anyone who reads this and felt the Obi-Wan vs Anakin duel was head & shoulders above the rest...Can you point out 2 of your favorite moments in the duel? I've only seen the film once and can only draw from what I saw and felt after watching ROTS once so I'm sure there's a bunch of things I've forgotten. Anyway, great thread. It's great to hear all of the differing points of view.

 

They showed the end of the Duel the other night on the AFI Awards tribute to Lucas and the entire audience was silenced. The fight itself is all pretty flashes of light and great background plates but no big thing. The impact of this duel is the end. When Obi-wan begs Anakin to stop the fight before it's too late with "I have the higher ground Anakin." It's not a stupid line. It's a plea to his brother. Don't do this Anakin. Don't force me to kill you. The resulting attack, Obi-wan's anguish and Anakin's screams were intense. As deeply moving and emotional as any movie has ever been.

Pretty damned good for a big-budget Saturday Matinee flick.

 

i know this has already been said but i feel i should say it again non the less.

the critisizm that the fight was shot too close and too quick so that all you could see was a haze of whirling lightsabers is IMHO (hehe) a flawed critisism.

george has already proved to us that he can shoot a fightsequence from a distance in TPM. the Obi/Maul fight was shot with medium shots and a few medium close up shots. this to many pple was better the the close up Vaderkin/Obi fight.

what some people have forgotten is that George *is* a film director and knows how to use the film medium. (even if he doesnt actually use "film" anymore)

my point being that George probably wanted the Vaderkin/Obi fight to look confusing because these are two somewhat confused characters fighting. on the one hand you have - the chosen one who has stupidly sold his soul to the devil for a chance to save his wife who he just throttled. On the other hand - you have a devote Jedi master who has just experienced his brethrin being exterminated and as found out this his "son" is a maniac!

IMO the final duel was every thing is hould have been.

thx

-num

 

As an overspoiled fan going in I expected more. This is the empty and useless whining, but I agree with other whiners on main points, and I imagine if we see a competent fan film or extra Star Wars sequel in our lifetimes, they'll pay attention to these critiques, one way or another. And let's not forget the cool video games and modestly budgeted TV show. There's still a world of lightsaber combat available for people who, for whatever reason, really like lightsaber combat. And a world of improvement.

Darth Maul's moves raised the bar. Even though Anakin looks skilled and graceful (sepatist slaughter is okay), a few intense CG flips in the duel would have done wonders to show his total, scary mastery. Even though Anakin technically dominates, we should see that he's an incredibly deadly force Obi-Wan can barely hold off (but confidently does anyway). We complainers feel the Maul duel just had a better dynamic.

Maul holds off two jedi, gets the better of them using his skill and power. The look of FEAR on Qui-gon's face...the way time sort of stands still for a moment...the aggressive SOUND of Maul's saber (where the hell was that in ROTS?!) the businesslike strike...then Obi vs. Maul's intensity, the feeling that Obi-wan is fighting a superior opponent and surprisingly, devestatingly matching him...

The first half of the duel was fast and furious, as expected. I wouldn't change anything. Especially Obi-wan's over the shoulder attempted kill strike, is as cool as anything in TPM. But trouble starts soon...the bad cut to saberless Anakin is inexplicable as edited. The next "standing their ground" shot is lame. It's fast, but the lack of motion just freezes the choreography. Maybe this is the point (ie, they're "equal")...nonetheless, unexciting, since there's no real tension. The double force-push is a good idea, and cool, nice Star Wars musical cue.

Then...since this is Obi-Wan vs. Anakin...a break for dialogue might have been nice. Does Anakin hate Obi-wan? Well, let's see it. "You're weak," hissed venomously, uhh..."I could never teach you to think," almost anything. Instead, they're suspended on a metal thing wordless. (BTW any inkling of the structural layout of the place they're fighting? I have no idea.)

The lava falls are spectacular, probably worth cutting to and exploring as filmed, but the duel (actual fighting) gets weaker and weaker as it progresses, which may account for the "anticlimactic" feeling people have. Anakin fighting on his droid, vs. Obi-wan, again this anchored to the floor lightsaber fighting is not exciting, and frankly looks fake enough for me.

"I have failed you," is cool, but Anakin's reply, "jedi point of view blah" makes me wince. It's like Lucas trying to support the crappy, thrown together dialogue of Obi-wan in ROTJ by sullying what should be some of the tensest lines of all of Star Wars. John Williams "exciting action" music near the end also sucks...why not reprise the "ultimate duel" music from ROTJ? It's mind-boggling.

Anyway that's it from me.

 

I thought the duel was pretty awesome! I wish they would have had a little more dialogue though, but the setting was amazing, and it was kind of funny they choose the hardest places to fight that they possibly could. I do wish they would have had a bit more of the Yoda/Sidious duel though, becuase we hardly get to see Yoda in action, so it would be great for it to have been longer. & I wish Sidious could have ran away, not Yoda...

 

Roland, that's exactly what I was thinking when I watched that the other night. I really think that the "I have the high ground" line is meant to be taken on more than the literal level.

The rest of the Duel is just great. Watch the intensity in Anakin's expression, particularly when he's floating towards Obi-Wan on that platform. I mean, there are a lot of iconic images there.

I especially liked it when Anakin said, sacrastically, "This is the end for you, my master" There's so much to love about this duel, I'm not sure what people were looking for that they didn't see.

 

I didn't think much of it .
When I read Christensen say that they spent 6 weeks rehearsing it I thought - "WHAT??"
The bit where they do that super-fast spin of their sabers was silly . then there was about 20 seconds of decent fighting, then there was that cut to them struggling on top of a table and where's Anakin's sabre ?
And then it's onto Greenscreen land and lava surfing and when Anakin loses his limbs it's actually unclear for several shots because he's a dark figure on a dark background .

I really think Lucas should have kept it realistic, this is such a personal moment . That lava surfing thing was crap.

g

 

"The Duel" was originally scripted to be 15 minutes long: almost double that of a regular fight. Perhaps what you are dissapointed in are the holes Lucas left out.
I personally loved the fight, especially how Anakin was defeated.

 

THis was the ultimate battles I had been hoping to see since I was a kid! I thought they were perfectly executed, I could have watched an hour of the duel alone!

 

I don't know how people can say they couldn't tell what was going on. I thought it was perfect and totally meet my expectations. I just think some of us might need to get our eyes checked!