I have to say that the Vader v.s. Obi-Wan duel from ROTS was my personal favorite. It had me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end when I first saw it, even though I will admit it dragged on for too long, the ending was just so emotive, and the music during the whole duel just perfectly sets the tone. What's your favorite duel from the prequels?
Maul vs. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, or Obi-Wan vs. Darth Vader. Though if I had to pick between those, I'd say Ep. 1's wins.
Dooku vs Anakin (and the blink and you miss it duel with obi-wan) AOTC tremendously bad editing, but the best duel imo by a mile strangely enough: Mace VS sidious too the only one that didn't look choregraphed to the extreme (and the only one to look "real" in terms of sword fighting)
Vader vs. Obi-Wan, easy. They punch each other in the face! Took 6 movies to get to that point but it was so badass. In fact, I kind of wish Lucas hadn't intercut the Sidious / Yoda fight. Not that it's awful or anything, but I think it would have been badass to do the Sidious vs. Yoda fight and then the Anakin vs. Obi-Wan fight, each in full and get their chance to breathe. Imagine how cool it would have been to cut from Sidious' line of "I sense Lord Vader is in danger." and then Padme's ship lands on Mustafar. Minor quibble, really, and it's still awesome as-is but coulda been even awesomer. Although I can see critics tearing the flick a new one for "one lightsaber fight after another / one lightsaber fight too many".
Out of all the prequel duels, I liked the Mustafar duel the best. It really felt like an actual duel and didn't feel overly choreographed at all. I think it helped that it was so emotionally and physically close since Anakin and Obi-Wan were doing their best in tearing each other apart. I didn't even realize just how much the other duels limited physical contact between the combatants until the Mustafar duel.
It really felt like an actual duel and didn't feel overly choreographed at all --- eh gotta disgree there, especially in the control room.
I chose Maul vs Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Ray Park was/is a true athlete and it shows, he's just on a different level physically in comparison to all the other actors who took part in a duel in the saga. He took a very awkward and impractical weapon and made it look good. Liam was a former athlete himself and performed well for his age. I was very impressed with Ewan's ability to keep up with Ray and not look like he's standing still. Was he a former athlete? Honorable mention to Yoda's pinballing. Anakin vs Obi-Wan had the most emotion, but just had way too many flaws that I could not overlook. Anakin sounds like a moron the entire time, laughably so, and even Obi-Wan gets dumbed down in the beginning. Also, this is just terrible:
This is a tough one. I would be tempted to say Obi-Wan vs. Anakin but it went on far too long (and had some silly moments). So, no. Dooku vs. everyone? Nice but not memorable to me. So, no. I do love the Duel of the Fates (so needlessly interrupted too much by the brain numbing scenes of Gungans and a boring space battle). Not totally invested in the characters. So, no. But a close second. The others were okay. I would have to say the winner is (in my twisted world).... Yoda vs. Sidious. I really enjoyed how it played out in the Senate and the music was spot on.
TPM duel. It was fast, smooth and well done, while Ray Park was great and knew what he was doing so it didn't feel coreagraphed. Plus Duel of the Fates what a score. The Mustafar duel suffered from some bad editing and was spoilt for me when on the table top Obi-wan slashes down instead of stabbing down, plus that whole having the high ground nonsense at the end.
I would go with Dooku vs Obi Wan and Anakin ep3. It's not too long and you've got some nice skills from Anakin and Dooku. Granted, Obi Wan is a bit of a non entity in this one.
Maul vs Obi Wan and Qui Gon. Much of the rest are either not long enough to have as much fun with or just too over the top even though I like them.
People laughed out loud during this fight, it was such a low point in the trilogy. I liked the fight between Windu and Palpatine. Someone else probably said this somewhere already, but that fight looked like a couple of people trying to kill each. The other lightsaber fights looked like dancers doing gymnastic rhythm ribbon routines together and made me a little embarrassed for whoever signed off on them, but the Windu and the emperor fight looked like they were trying to beat each other to death with sticks. Very cool.
The Mustafar duel is by far my favorite--it's the most intense, both in terms of execution and story, and (more importantly) the most artistically shot.
The one thing that I found was actually very cool and intense in TPM was the Maul vs Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan duel. That, coupled with JW's Duel of the Fates, made it totally epic. But I don't know why Obi didn't Force run before those red shield things blocked his way... AOTC duel wasn't very intense IMO. And the Mustafar duel was waaaaaaaay too long and unbelievable. I liked the duel between Palps and Mace, and also Palps and Yoda.
You didn't think Palpatine bouncing around the furniture like a red ping pong ball and having Ian Mcdairmid make funny faces a tad over done Though I have to confess I have always thought giving Yoda and Palpatine Lightsabers was a terrible idea.
It's the PT. For these movies, the cheesiness to which you refer can be considered moments of understated classiness.
