ST Lightsaber Combat in the ST

Sith-I-5: If that is the case then it makes it worse. That scene could have been good but they ruined it by not having her trained.

 

It's a good thing the film showed us every single thing that ever happened to Rey in her entire life, so we can be sure that she never ever had any training that we don't know about.

IOW, I'm in the camp for "There's more to Rey than meets the eye." The story's not over, and Rey's story is still 99% mystery. Let's see the whole story before we start accusing the writers of pushing agendas.

 

Finn doesn't stand up to Kylo Ren at all.... Kylo deals with him contemptuously throughout their brief fight, knocking him down with brute force, turning his back on him, swirling his lightsabre in his hand, and dodging out of the way of Finn's strikes with almost casual amusement. Kylo plays with him and does so because he wishes to punish this traitor. The look on his face when he's digging his cross guard into Finn speaks volumes. A lucky strike from Finn lands, but it has everything to do with story (ie, Kylo's arrogance, Finn's dogged determination) rather than because of Finn's skills, and then Kylo turns serious with a disarm, punch to the face and 'backbreaking' hit within seconds.

As for Kylo's injury affecting him, he's expending a lot of energy chasing after Rey, and even grunts in frustration at one point as Rey avoids another strike (when they are in the rock gully) to the extent that after Rey hits his legs he's utterly exhausted and can barely move. There's a moment too as he's getting up where he's holding his side where he was shot. The message to me is thus, up this point, Kylo's being using the Force to keep himself going (hitting himself to increase his pain and thus his anger) but when Rey rejects him and ends up attacking and hitting him, his fear kicks in and he can no longer exploit the Force to the same way. Thus he goes from full on to barely being able to do anything. It's not like this is temporary power up something new either (see Yoda).

 

An outmatched hero suddenly whomping on an apparently superior opponent because The Force says so is actually a pretty classic Star Wars trope. There's Obi-Wan opening a can of whupass on Maul in PTM, Luke going from duelling Vader to kicking his shiny metal ass in ROTJ, various others in Legends verse EU. And for me, Rey is at no point actually anywhere near as skilled as Ren. She's just literally hacking away at him faster and stronger than he can deal with.

 

I rank this just below the duels in ESB and ROTJ, and that's because in those two, there was a lot more going on character wise IMO.

What made it for me were the lightsaber effects (how they came off as so weighty and powerful and interacted with the environment. This is a case of technological advancements improving elements of the saga) and seeing the combatants looking tired and beat up, which added a sense of humanity and vulnerability to them.

The choreography was also very grounded and believable, with the combatants actually looking like they were trying to hit each other rather than finding out how many different ways they can tap their swords together.

Also, I really wish that people would stop treating film characters like video game characters (i.e., they need to level up to a certain point before they can fight and/or beat x opponent). FFS, I just watched The Edge the other day, and in that movie Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin play a billionaire and fashion photographer respectively stranded in the woods. Neither of these men are expert woodsmen by any stretch of the imagination, but they manage to build a bunch of elaborate traps and defeat a bear with only wooden spears as well as make it out of the wilderness. By video game logic, they should both be dead because it's a "mission" that's "too high of a level" for them to succeed. But since this is a movie, it serves a storytelling purpose in showing how two rivals are able to work past their differences and overcome obstacles together. In TFA's case, it is to symbolize Rey overcoming the monster who kidnapped and violated her, and connects to a theme in the film of Rey's ascent to hero status and Ben Solo's emotional compromise after killing his father.

 

Besides, Kylo is not yet that accomplished. He has some skill, but he's still rough around the edges. Any Old Republic Jedi would've owned him - especially in that state of physical and emotional instability.

 

I agree and that's why we get to see his tantrums early in the movie. Deep inside, he's just another whiny Skywalker. When Kylo loses it, his own instability turns him into a reckless blind mess.

 

The duel was great but, who else got frustrated when Star Killer Base started to collapsing during the fight scene it was very distracting and cut the light saber battle to being very short

 

That's life. Things happen. It worked for me.

 

I thought it was a cool encounter, first time ever a female was involved & survived.

 

Nice dodge. You still haven't responded to the obvious interpretation that Finn holding his own for a bit against Kylo is a clear indication of Kylo not being at 100%. There is all kinds of setup, and there are all kinds of signs, telling the audience that Kylo's wound is serious. That setup, and those signs, are conveniently ignored by those trying to artificially strengthen the case for an OP Rey.

 

It does certainly add to the overall confusion about what was really going on in the entire sequence.

Really I don't spend too much time thinking about it because I don't really think there is a high degree of probability that as per JJ's style of how he works action sequences that everything was thought out in detail on a physical and character level.

Like so many things about TFA it's left largely blank with a few things that may be able to help us to build up the overall story.

Kylo Ren can hurl Rey with the Force (which she can't defend against) but then he doesn't use that on Finn who would be totally helpless against any kind of attack like that. Fine he wants to teach Finn a lesson with the saber. OK but then he duels with him for almost 1 minute. Anakin vs Dooku in ROTS one on one was like 40 seconds. Why is Kylo Ren so terrible?

Then back to Rey and again no Force attack from Ren. Not even a try and then having her push back with her ultra quick learning curve on Force powers.

Now parts of the duel are based on Anakin vs Dooku which was a cool tie-in:























In that case though we see how Anakin was overmatched before and now is on the same level or above.

 

Thanks for that juxtaposition. Really reinforces how good the duel in TFA looks, from cinematographic perspective.

 

Interesting how both were filmed on a set, but only the lighting in the ROTS duel looks off (IMO).

 

it's also not outside on a planet but inside a ship with windows to outer space. so lighting is different. they also didn't have the new lightsaber props that glow like they do now.

 

They did have glow-y lightsaber props for AOTC but they probably weren't sturdy enough for real fighting.

Regarding the lightsabers though, does anyone else think that the TFA lightsaber effect may have been imitating the 2004/2011 Special Edition glows? For example, the original lightsaber glow for Luke's lightsaber in TESB looked like this (pic taken from TESB Despecialized v2.0):

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Then, due to the darkened picture in the 2004/2011 versions, the lightsabers had less bright cores with more color bleeding into them (when they really should have been pure white):

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It seems that the TFA lightsabers also have color bleeding into the cores:

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Do you guys think this was done intentionally to model the sabers after their TESB look whilst not knowing that the 2004/2011 versions had mistakenly darkened cores? Or is this a coincidence?

 

That didn't stop the duel in ROTJ from being evocatively lit:



Lucas had control over the lighting and the locations in ROTS. He could've given us more compelling atmospherics. He just chose an aesthetic that a lot of people didn't appreciate, and stuck with it.

 

yes it was an aesthetic choice. i like that the pt, ot and st feel and look different.

 

Why would a length of 60 seconds as opposed to 40 seconds be indicative that Kyo Ren is so terrible? Of course, you know why it lasts long, because Kylo wants to punish and frighten Finn. It's drawn out deliberately so, as evidenced by the quick ease with which Kylo ends it. I'm baffled by why you're using the duel in ROTS to compare duration in the first place since that ROTS duel is a completely different situation with characters of completely different backgrounds being driven by completely different motivations.

 

I was comparing the duels in ROTJ and ROTS, which both feature a Jedi and a Sith Lord fighting, and both take place on a space-faring vessel which has windows. Perfectly appropriate comparison.

And the aesthetic of the Mustafar sequence is off too, IMO. Reminds me of amusement park lighting.

But this is all a matter of taste, not fact. So we can leave it there.

 

I just had an urge to watch TFA again, thanks to this duel!
Too bad I don't have the time right now

 

The brilliance of the Mustafar duel is how it contrasts the blue lightsabers against the fiery everything-else or otherwise dull gray building

Likewise, the TFA duel has its brilliance in that saber lock with the red and blue flashing against each other. The same yet different