Duels of the Fates: The Lost Saber fights of the Prequels

I figured that since this is the new place for prequel stuff it would be a pretty good place to post this.

I was going back though all my Behind the Sces stuff for Episode I and II and I noticed that there is alot of missing fight footage. Now, I knew about the stuff from AOTC that got cut but I never ealized that there was stuff missing from Phantom Menace!

Now, I'm sure that some of it was for pacing reasons, but I think the fights should've remained untouched, or at least had some of the better footage inserted. My main gripe is about the Dooku Obi Ani duel, and the missing two sabers against Yoda stuff, but I tink there was even more to the Qui/Maul in the desert fight, the weakes fight in the Prequels IMO. Would it have hurt the movies to much to have slightly longer, beter fights?

Please, feel free to use this thread to discuss, vent, justify, draft up petions for, and otherwise share what you think about the missing duels.

DLB

Well, I think that the Desert Duel was a very good length. Very short, Qui-Gon needed to get away. So it wasn't really a good place for an epic duel. It was just supposed to inform the heros that something's up. The Duel at the end of TPM isn't short by any means, so I'm fine with that. AotC I would say should have been a bit longer, but not by much, because I think that the ones in AotC are ment to be good, but pail in comparison to the ones that will be in RotS.

I think the Episode 2 duel could of been alot longer, we didn't see all what Ani could do in a duel, wich leads us to see his full potential in Episode 3.

the qui gon in the desert and aotc were over edited

I also think that the battle between Anakin and Dooku was cut a bit short and kinda left me dissatisfied

AotC I would say should have been a bit longer, but not by much, because I think that the ones in AotC are ment to be good, but pail in comparison to the ones that will be in RotS.

I agree completely. I fell a little deprived due to the brevity of the AOTC duels. However, I really do think a good reason for having these previous duels be shorter is to make ROTS really stand out.

Longer duels=good.

Yay, my first post in the prequel forum!

I think the Qui Gon desert fight was just fine because don't forget that it is the first time we ever see a Sith fight a Jedi (chronologically) and it should have a sort of mysterious edge to it.

It's Ben Burtt. He needs to stay the hell away from the PT.

Ben Burtt's the sound guy. He has nothing to do with editing.

The duel between Dooku and Anakin in AotC was a symbolic forshadowing. Blue/Red/Blue/Red with Dooku noticeably winded afterwards to indicate how powerful Anakin and Ankakins defeat being an indicator that he's not there yet. It didnt really have to be a long duel.

Not to mention that AOTC's lightsaber battle has a time limit. Dooku has to get away before the rest of the Jedi and clonetroopers arrive.

I think the biggest thing cut from the TPM duel was the Maul/Obi Wan fight? I could have sworn I heard something about Nick Gilliard talking about how it had to be cut down from the original lengthy choreography.

"Ben Burtt's the sound guy. He has nothing to do with editing."
He's also the editor of the crew.

He's also the editor of the crew.
And ruiner of the commentaries.

Definitley Dooku using two sabers verse Yoda. I really wanted to see that one.

Regarding the desert fight:

QGJ was trying to get away. He was taken off guard and didn't know anything about his enemy. That makes for a losing battle. He also was completely on the defensive, just trying to buy time for the others to get to the ship.

I don't know why Maul let him go. He could have easily prevented him from escaping.

I thought it was fine.

The TPM battle sets the tone for the Saga and ROTS (this part being speculation on my part). You have Sith v. Jedi...I think AOTC, there might have been a reasoning for Lucas to hold back. Again, I'm speculating, but I think he wants us to see Anakin's potential briefly and besides, the Clone War is just starting up. The Dooku duel really more displayed Yoda's powers and the rebelliousness of the past several generations of Jedi (Dooku, Qui-Gon and even at time Obi-Wan and of course Anakin). It's very subtly done and I haven't heard many talk about this aspect specifically. That's really what I took from AOTC and of course, the beginning of Anakin's body being machine with his arm getting cut off.

As far as missing duels, I do feel they could have added more but my only guess is that Lucas is saving up some stuff for ROTS and perhaps in the future, we will see more of these fights. I think they could have added more to the ROTJ (if you want to talk about a duel that could have been beefed up more but that's OT) and he still may after everything is all said and done.

Edit: As far Burtt, I think there's a reason he has been a commentary "ruiner" for a while. He talks so much that Lucas doesn't have time to really discuss plot points in detail. I would hope this changes after the movies are done and we can have some real Lucas commentary. Burtt talks on and on at key moments in the OT DVD commentaries and I think it was designed for a distinct reason.

QGJ was trying to get away. He was taken off guard and didn't know anything about his enemy. That makes for a losing battle. He also was completely on the defensive, just trying to buy time for the others to get to the ship.

I agree. Lucas also said on the commentary that he specifically shot and edited the desert duel the way he did on purpose because he wanted it to be a teaser for the fight at the end. In that regard it works just fine too.

The Duel of the Fates did have some footage cut from it as well mainly from the two on one portion at the start of the fight. A lot of this finished footage can be seen on Disc 2 of the DVD in the fight documentaries. If you watch the deleted scenes with commentary on there's an additional montage of shots at the end which include deleted lightsaber duel and space battle footage.

The AOTC duel unfortunantly had many trims made to it. The Obi-Wan and Anakin portions got the brunt of the trimming. There's a bunch of little jumps cuts that interupt the flow of the fight and create instances of the characters being in different spots of the hangar from shot to shot. Instead of actually seeing the combatants fight from point A to point B to point C, we see point A but then it jumps to point C.

There's two of these kinds of cuts that stand out for me. First is when Obi-Wan throws the blue saber to Anakin, he and Dooku are standing over Obi-Wan toward the back of the hanger then all of a sudden they are both near the entrance when Anakin catches the blue saber. There was supposed to be a short sequence where Anakin fought Dooku with the green saber before Obi tossed in the blue one.

Second is before Anakin gets his arm chopped off. Anakin and Dooku are in the middle of fighting and then it just abrubtly cuts to the shot of Anakin getting sliced.

I don't mind that fact that those duels were short I just don't like the way they were edited.

Every time I see TPM, the duel at the end makes me anxious and the bit about having Obi-Wan trapped behind the force-field doors was just a stroke of brilliance. I love the way it inserts an unnatural pause into an otherwise furious fight, and yet it continues to build the momentum because you know what's coming up.

It amazes me how much people gripe about TPM and yet it contains such a stunning duel--one that, frankly, I wouldn't change a bit. It's possibly one of the best scenes in all the SW films.

GL admits that he does not like for his films to be long. He believes it is not what the mainstream audience would want. As for us Star Wars fans though, I would watch an 8 hour film if it explained every detail.