Personality characteristics in lightsaber styles

Well as I recall in TPM Obi wan was leaning forward a lot. One thing I learned in Karate is that when you do that, you leave yourself open to be hit in the head. The funny thing is that the saber twirling Obi wan does is in TPM is the most noticible, but not the only one, of his mistakes.

 

It fits his character in TPM, IMO. He's a brash, impetous Padawan who makes bad decisions sometimes in this film; his swordplay reflects that.

In AOTC, it's ten years later, and he's matured as a result of becoming a Knight, having a Padawan, being required to make decisions on his own-we see in TPM that Obi-Wan is very much a learner as a Padawan-he follows Qui-Gon's lead, even if he disagrees with him-and much of the goofiness is gone from his swordsmanship. Anakin obviously thinks very highly of him-"As wise as Master Yoda, and as powerful as Master Windu"-as does Yoda and Mace-notice that they already involve him in something of the decision-making process, and listen to his opinion.

And by ROTS, he's the greatest swordsman of his particular style, probably the best General the Jedi have, as well as the number-three guy on the Council, by all appearances. He may not have the Force ability of Skywalker or Yoda, but he's no slouch with a lightsabre, or in anything else, for that matter.

 

Are we allowed to include info from the "official" styles from the novels and articles, such as Makashi and Ataru?

 

Yes.

 

well since obi-wan has the exact opposite stile of what anakin has, it would make a lot of sense that because he can not brake throw his defense at all, anakin has to use the force a lot in order to get the upper hand.and that really worked for the force push that he did on him which is why i never really understood why there were not any more force powers used in the ROTS fight.i herd that there was a deleted scene were anakin throws lava at obi-wan!that would have been really cool!
that makes me think if thats the reason why he kicked his ass so bad in episode 4! because maybe he changed his stile just a little bit in order to adjust to the armor that he is forced to wear.since obi-wans stile is all about defense then vader is well protected because his stile is all about power! and he was just so strong that he was braking his defenses! witch would explane why luke was able to land a blow to his sholder in episode 5! cuz they were both using the same stile but luke was quicker! what do you think?

 

Obi-Wan and Anakin use the same fighting style. I don't know what the EU says, but if it says they're different, then it's wrong. Obi-Wan and Anakin mirror one another perfectly at Mustafar, especially in the control room. Same techniques, different emotions guiding them.

 

I'd disagree. You can look onscreen and see that besides TPM, Obi-Wan almost never takes the offense unless there's no other option; he prefers to let the other guy make the first move. He fights defensively.

Anakin on the other hand, always makes the first move. He doesn't defend; he attacks.

 

They might have different philosophies, but during the ROTS duel, they are the same. That's why the duel lasted so long. No dead angles were presented by either one.

 

thats only because anakin was taut by obi-wan,but there stiles are different! anakin uses form 5 also called shien (witch favors maximum strength but leafs you open for attack) and obi-wan uses form 3 also called soresu (witch is all about defense) and thats what i mean,see?

 

Well, Shien and Soresu must look very similar, because they use the exact same techniques. Their engagement in the control room shows how they mirror one another, literally.

 

yes they do mirror each outher but thats because of there master/padawon relationship and the fact that they always use to run drills over and over that they just know each other so well,stuff like that.

 

I love that this thread still lives.

I think Lucas put the force-push confrontaion in there to show that they were evenly matched in that respect. Both Anakin and Obi-Wan end up repelled the same distance, therefore suggesting that further force-based struggles between them would be a waste of time. Anakin's main advantage, going from what we are shown in the film, is greater physical strength and resilience.

 

well actually,anakin was a little stronger because when they did the force push he jumped right up like it was nothing and obi-wan looked really tired and weakened from it they were evenly matched in lightsaber combat but anakin was soooooo much stronger with the force. so i think its kind of the opposite.

 

The speed of his recovery I would put down to physical resilience. If Lucas wanted to show Anakin as being stronger with the Force-push it would have been easier to show Obi-Wan knocked further, or Anakin not moved at all. I think Lucas intentionally showed parity there to nix the "why aren't they attacking each other with the Force" question. Back when Lucas was making Empire and he had Vader use telekenesis against Luke, the question came up as to why Vader didn't use it against Obi-Wan in their Death-Star duel; the answer he came up with was that Vader was a 4 when it came to telekenesis, while Kenobi was a 6, therefore Kenobi was too strong for him. I'm not saying that is canon these days, butI think GL decided that in The Duel thwy were equal with The Force, as Anakin had not achieved his full potential.

 

well,there was nothing at all to throw at obi-wan so questing that was kind of unnecessary.i would ask why they were no force powers used at all in the ROTJ fight!! that has always bothered me!you know what im talking about?

 

But they did. Luke's leaping onto the catwalk. Vader's saber throw. Even the fact that luke was physically strong enough to defend cybernetic vader's attack could be taken as a power. The only reason they weren't ripping out everything and the kitchen sink and hurling it at each other is because their objectives were to turn each other. Not to kill each other.

 

Are there any duels in the comics and books that really stand out for anyone? I think there are several characters to look at like Tholme, quinlan, asajj, cade, shado vao, jacen and jaina in terms of their fighting characteristics

 

The EU Literature threads probably have more information about them.

 

That's fine. I thought we might expand to other characters in the eu just to get new or fresh perspectives.

 

Well, let's see ...

Mara Jade is said to be good at "precise bladework", in fact mentioned as being better at it than Luke is. She's also apparently good at using the point of the blade to maximum effect. We'd probably be safe in saying that she was originally trained in and still mostly uses a form of Makashi, from this information; this is in keeping with her training as an assassin. She did not focus overmuch on blaster deflection (since pretty much every time we see her against gunners, she either uses a gun herself or cooks up some other trick, instead of simply batting their own blaster bolts back at them), although she seems to have gotten better at it over the years, no doubt as a perk of being married to the greatest saberist of the age. Her particular personality seems best suited to cunning, measured swordplay, in which she attempts to draw her opponents off-balance before she strikes quickly and accurately.

Kyle Katarn also has a tendency to use guns, but this seems to stem more from his personal tastes rather then from any deficiency in his saber skills, since he's the NJO's battlemaster and is often described as its second-best saberist (a claim which may be justifed, considering how much pure saber-to-saber fighting experience he seems to have had when compared to the average Jedi). Judging from the NPC Kyle in the game "Jedi Academy", Kyle later on in life favors the "medium" and "strong" stances of Lightsaber combat, which suggests that while his bladework is not particularly speedy, he strikes with great power and probably draws heavily on Form V principles. He often seems to win fights by simply knocking his opponent's weapon out of their hands through brute force; this is not to say, however, that he is not a wily duellist, considering that he defeated Desann, who had much greater strength, comparable if not greater speed, and was empowered by some sort of Force Nexus deep in the temples of Yavin IV.

Kyp Durron is perhaps the most powerful Jedi Master in the Order after Luke. However, his swordfighting skills seem to lack the distinction that his Force power does, judging from his abyssmal performance against only two Yuuzhan Vong Slayers. Granted, most Jedi would be annihilated by even one; however, the Solo twins (who were perhaps 20 at this point) each took on more than twice as many as he did and managed to hold their own. From this, and from Kyp's brash, cocky demeanor (which he seems to retain for the most part in the NJO and beyond), I'd say he probably fights something like Anakin Skywalker did, without the natural talent. He is an above-average duellist, but thinks of himself as a master and thus takes foolish risks and makes sloppy mistakes, while lacking the raw skill to pull him through despite his shortcomings.

All of these are made purely off the top of my head; I'm sure detailed study of the books would yield more information on these characters' styles. Anyone else have characters to add?

 

Well, as it's been quite some time since I really thought about how EU Jedi fight..

Let's talk about Luke.

By the NJO, he is at an amazing level; the descriptions given in Dark Tide and TUF in particular stand out, where he's described with his sword seeming to be in twenty places as once. The closest thing onscreen to that we've seen is, I think Yoda in AOTC, although I don't think Luke would be nearly as acrobatic. Just blazingly fast.

 

Easier written on a page than actually done or filmed believably.

 

Well, yeah. Filming a real person moving fast enough to seem like he's attacking 20 places at once would be impossible without some CGI, because, well, nobody moves that fast. Even granting that that's hyperbole, Luke would still need to be moving at such a fast speed that even other Jedi with lightning-quick reactions and senses can't follow him, let alone an average viewer.

 

Yeah, I figure Luke nowadays if he were onscreen would be moving at about the speed Sidious must have been moving at to off those two filler Jedi.

Note: I didn't say how fast he appeared to be moving on-screen. I said how fast he had to have moved to actually accomplish that.

 

That fight scene was painful. I can understand that it's hard to choreograph a 4v1, especially when you have 3 people in full makeup/prosthetics, one actor who thinks he knows what he's doing, and one old actor who can't do everything ... but come on. Take a cue from the RotS novel and make him kill the first two by throwing their guard off first with his Palpatine act. Or make him parry one Jedi's saber into another's body. Or just have him draw a damn gun and shoot someone in the face when they're not expecting it. But don't give us that ridiculous crap that has everyone referring to Kit, Agen and Saesee as "the filler Jedi".