AOTC Chapter 45: Duel with Dooku DISCUSSION

Until the release of ROTS on 5/19/05, I would like to discuss AOTC chapter by chapter on the DVD. There are 47 chapters to discuss over the next eight months, excluding Chapter 1: Opening Logos, Chapter 2: Attack of the Clones and Chapter 50: End Credits.

Each discussion will last 5 days. At the end of 5 days, the following chapter will be posted.

Chapter 45: Duel with Dooku
DISCUSSION: March 27, 2005 - March 31, 2005
DVD TIME INDEX: 124:42 - 127:34

Synopsis:
Count Dooku and his assistant droid are preparing the Solar Sailer for lightoff. Moments later, the two Jedi enter the hangar with lightsabers ignited. Anakin tells the Sith Lord that he's going to pay for his crimes today. Ready to attack, Anakin charges at Dooku, only to be electrocuted by Force Lightning to the other side of the hangar. The duel is now one-on-one. Dooku shoots Force Lightning at Kenobi, who deflects it with his saber. Obi-Wan doesn't think Dooku has greater powers than he. The Sith Lord ignites his curved lightsaber and clashes with Master Kenobi. Obi-Wan attacks and the two combatants clash with every swing of the blade. Dooku tells his adversary that he's disappointed in him. Fueled by Dooku's banter, Obi-Wan strikes Dooku, who continues to egg him on. Kenobi breaks away from Dooku, climbing over the Solar Sailer ramp as Anakin continues to feel the effect of the lightning. On the dunes outside of the battle, a Clone Trooper comes over to Padme's aid and asks if she's okay. He suggests a return to the Forward Command Center, but Padme orders to head for the hangar. Back in the Geonosian hangar, Dooku and Obi-Wan continue their duel. Obi-Wan meets his match as he is struck in the leg and arm. Dooku is ready to make the kill, but Anakin flies over and makes the save. The Sith Lord said his sacrifice was brave and he should have learned his lesson by now. Anakin tells him that he's a slow learner. The padawan then engages in a duel with Dooku. Obi-Wan reaching for his blade, throws it to Anakin, who now duels with two lightsabers. The duel intensifies, but it's not long before Anakin loses a lightsaber and the hangar loses power. With only the lights from their blades as the only illumination, the duel continues. Anakin and Dooku clash intensely. Back in the light, Dooku cuts off Anakin's fighting hand and Force Pushes him over to Obi-Wan. Dooku shuts off his lightsaber with some sadness. END OF CHAPTER

Opinion:
It's not as flashy and lenghty as the duel from Phantom Menace. We don't have an acrobatic villain like Darth Maul who was more for show than story. However, Dooku and this duel are memorable in other ways.

I think this is the moment we've been waiting for, Anakin's first on-screen duel. Opening up with Force Lightning does cheapen the surprise in ROTJ. But it's ironic that Anakin is electrocuted at the start of his onscreen duel and the finale of his final duel. Dooku's fight with Kenobi is done well. I love the fighting banter Dooku uses. Brings us closer to Vader than Maul.

Anakin's duel with Dooku is shot rather different. After the power is out, the only thing we can see is their faces illuminated by the lightsabers. Having that feel, takes us away from the boring hangar feel, especially after all that flash in Phantom Menace. The other thing that got to me was the shortness of the duel. It seemed like it just started and it was already over.

Like ESB and ROTJ between Luke and Vader, a rematch should be in order. Not bad for Anakin's first on-screen duel and Kenobi's first duel as the master. But everything is forgiven with the next contestant, the Great Warrior himself in the next chapter. Good chapter.

The duel(s) were edited to death.

my favirote part was when anakin fights with 2 sabers, moleman are you going to do a ROTS, ESB and ROTJ chapter discussion

Hell yeah Grievous. More info and major announcments concerning CBC will be coming down the road in the future weeks and months.

Anakin's fighting with two blades is wicked. There's many more different and devastating techniques than the double blade in TPM. There's so much more freedom of movement in dueling.

The duels in AOTC lacked something. But, I don't know what yet. Dooku takes Anakin and Obi-Wan out way too easily. There isn't much to say about this scene.

I liked the scene. We see yet again that Anakin is overconfident.

The duel is still not nearly as good as the TPM one.

The style in which the duels were edited was much different than all the other films. I wonder if this had to do with the fact that GL (or I guess Ben Burtt) had to fit 3 duels in one sequence when the movie was already too long for GL standards. I think they made a stylistic choice based on time constraints. I worked for me.

Does anyone think Dooku used the force to immobilize Anakin for a split second before cutting his arm off? When I watch it, Dooku seems to doing something with his hand as he spins into the strike that cuts Anakin. When it cuts to Ani's back just before the arm comes off, Ani seems to twitch slightly like maybe he can't move to block the oncomming blow. I know there has never been a "force immobilization" before in any of the movies, but they are all over the EU.

I thought that the duel was OK, it was pretty short though. I didn't like the part when it flashed back between their faces with the glows on their face, i thought that was kind of weird. But its a SW duel so I guess it was pretty cool in that respect

This really is my only gripe with AOTC. It didn't bother me that it wasn't as flashy as TPM. However, it would have been really good to see Anakin fight with 2 sabers. Up to that point, fighting with 2 sabers as much of a novelty as the double bladed saber. We missed some very cool stuff. Besides that, the way this scene is edited makes Anakin look like an amateur Jedi.

"Besides that, the way this scene is edited makes Anakin look like an amateur Jedi."

But compared to Obi-Wan in this duel, Anakin could have bean the Master and Obi-Wan the apprentice.

My favorite part was the 2 sabers.

I agree it was edited strangely. When Anakin and Dooku were fighting and the shots were up close, you felt as though they wanted to hide the battle from us. I always prefer seeing sabers crackle together instead of up close face shots during battle.

Hmm. Lots to talk about in this chapter.

We'll start with Obi-Wans "no anakin no!" Very much like Qui-Gon earlier in the film. Like Master like Apprentice I guess.

Tyranus using lightning. Very controversial when we first saw it. The idea that Sidious would let one of his apprentices learn such a power. Maul and Vader never used it. So we figured it was unique to Sidious. But we were wrong. But if that weren't enough, we see in this chapter that lightsabers can absorb the lightning power. Nearly making it obsolete at the start of the battle. It was kinda sad back then. But I suppose there is hope that Sidious's lightning is stronger...

The duel between Tyranus and Obi-Wan was short but I like how Tyranus bested Obi-Wan. The Obi-Wan of the OT wasn't missing any legs or fingers so Lucas had to hit him with the saber in certain spots that would take him down and not take off any limbs.

Padme getting up from the sand and yapping was bad. The dialogue and the acting. Moving on.

Anakin taking on Tyranus was cool for the first half. Using two sabers was great. Really brought the battle to the next level. Then as quickly as he got the second saber, he lost it. Terrible editing. The shots in the dark were visually cool, but it was too long and didn't really show the duel. Felt like an old trick they'd use in Hollywood back in the day to cut costs on action sequences. Then finally Tyranus cuts off Anakins saber arm and force pushes him to Obi-Wan. Pretty cool. Two Jedi tried to take down Tyranus but couldn't.

The duel was fine, but I think Dooku sliced off Ankin's hand too easily. It was like Anakin let him do it. I don't see that very convincing.

Agreed on Editing--I would've paid real money to see more Anakin with two sabers, and Dooku with two sabers against Yoda!--but I think there was another reason they did it. That reason being Christopher Lee. In his day he was the master of the duel, but he's old now, and even with digital tech you can only get away with so much pasting Lee's face on the stunt double's body.

The other reason for the dark saber duel between Dooku and Anakin was symbolic; the fallen Jedi vs the Jedi who was beginning to fall. A duel in darkness, with both combatants using the Dark Side or leaning that way. Note both use the saber-over-the-head stance.

wasnt there a part were Dooku uses two but cut

You're absolutely right rechedelphar. Dooku did take Anakin's blue for a while. But having two combatants wielding two one after another, would take away Anakin's skills a bit. Set him apart from Obi-Wan and Dooku.

The reason Dooku took down Kenobi and Skywalker was so he would seem like a match for Yoda and it would create a more dramatic feel for when they face off

I can't stand the part when Obi-Wan throws Anakin the saber and goes from being right next to Anakin and Dooku to not even being in the same shot when Anakin catches the saber, really badly edited.

The AOTC duels (including Yoda/Dooku) are my least favourite from any of the film's duels, that doesn't mean I don't like them though. I guess I was hoping for something like DotF again, and I prefer Maul to Dooku.

I can't stand the part when Obi-Wan throws Anakin the saber and goes from being right next to Anakin and Dooku to not even being in the same shot when Anakin catches the saber, really badly edited.

Definitely

AotC is my favorite episode, but this moment is the most embarresing piece of film in the entire saga. Everytime i watch this movie with other people i try distracting them so that they won't notice it

Great fights, great moments, great visuals, great sounds, awful edit


- O_F

The saber battles were just too short. In TPM we might have been spoiled with 2 amazing saber fights, the first in the desert and the final Duel of the Fates *drool*.

In AotC the saber battles seemed like grade school playing. Anakin and Obi went down way too easy, especially Anakin. It didn't look so much to me that Dooko was strong like I think GL intended but just that the two Jedi were not very good at all. The editing was a nightmare and the tease with two sabers was cruel. I think he had them for 7 seconds.

I did like Dooko's banter with Obi and Anakin some of AotC's best lines came from this scene so that's good.

I loved this scene the first time around, but upon
furthur review, the cracks begin to show.

Too short (Especially Obi-Wan)
Not always convincing CG Dooku stand-in
Hangar not the best locale (looks like they're
fighting inside a clay pot)

I think that this duel was actually better then the TPM one. And it was definately ment to bee seen on the big screen. I thought that Dooku's lightsaber looked so much cooler and more elegant then Maul's big bulky, plastic lookin one. Maul was an acrobat with little personality besides wanting to have revenge (13 years too early ). In this duel, Dooku really reveals more of the depth of his character. Both through his diolague, and through his fighting style. I really loved him talking and taunting his opponents so much. It really brought back a Vader character, yet less obviously evil. I like how he knocked Anakin out of the battle just like that. Then Obi-Wan's line had to be one of the coolest in the movie "I don't think so." A good, short duel with Kenobi. And I really liked Anakin's line: "I am a slow learner" just because we all know he is. The duel here was great, and I loved seeing the two lightsabers. The part where we can only see their faces through the glow of their sabers was really cool. For the first time really, we didn't actually see the sabers as they were swung. This created a rally cool dramatic effect.

Yeah, but Christenson had the strangest look on his face, like he was retarded or something.

I loved this battle it showed many things. First the dark side of the force is more powerful than the light. Every time a Sith has shown up, it takes at least 2 Jedi to fight him to have a chance, and in this case Duku whipped them both. Secondly it shows that Anakin's skills with a Saber already surpass Obi-Wan's as Obi Wan couldn't hang for long. It showed the beginnings of Vader and the similarities of Father and son as Luke lost his arm much the same way when he first fought Vader.

The battle was choreographed well, and it showed the three distinct fighting styles between the combatants. It also showed that Darth Maul was unique in his acrobatic style, and Duku was unique in his switching from saber fighting to force powers.