Disney Buys LucasFilm, Star Wars Episode 7 in 2015

What always got me about the duels in Empire and Jedi were the emotions displayed in the fighting. You could tell that Vader was just toying with Luke by using one hand. When he got angry at him, Luke was completely on the defensive. and even lost a hand. Then in Jedi, Vader used his feelings for Leia to elicit a very emotion response in the form of Luke forgetting to even fight properly. He ends up wailing on Vader's sword, not ever trying to win. That was cool. In the Revenge fight, the only real part that I liked was when they were both stuck on the same platform in the lava river. There was no jumping, just swinging. Then it was ruined by the high ground comment.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

But now I can't get over how tragic it is that Ironside has never been a Sith. He already has a Sithy name!

I was wondering how long it would take someone to come up with some sort of Ironside vs. The Dark Side joke!

Also, can we please for the love of god stop posting links to TVTropes? I always get lost in a spiderhole of hotlinks whenever I visit that site.

LarryC is totally correct. Yoda is a master, not a friggin' superball. The entire Yoda/Dooku fight was an abomination. All the jumping around flippy showoff crap should have been left to Maul and Obi Wan; Yoda/Dooku should have been Yoda barely moving and Dooku getting more and more frantic until Yoda kills him with his own saber or something equally cool.

EDIT: Like the swordfight in Princess Bride. /EDIT

Anakin/Obi Wan wasn't a masterpiece, it was a mediocre dance routine, done without soul.

nel e nel wrote:

I was wondering how long it would take someone to come up with some sort of Ironside vs. The Dark Side joke!

Darth Ironside would show these chumps Maul, Sidious, and whoever else how you rule a damn galaxy. He did Female Doggoslap Superman, after all.

Stop it! You're ruining everything. You're all overanalyzing this too much. Thats not the point of SW. The point is to watch it through the eyes of an 8 year old.

That way SW is always f@ckin awesome!

Edit: hey man, thats just like... your opinion, man!

Stengah wrote:

Vader easily deflected any and all blaster bolts shot at him. Obi-Wan sensed Alderaan's destruction from across the galaxy. Yoda lifted an x-wing out of a swamp. Luke was able to telepathically call to Leia for help. Vader killed people just by thinking about it, and could even do it over the comms system! The main reason we didn't see over-the-top force displays was that outside of Vader, the Emperor, Obi-Wan, and Yoda, all the force users were dead, or still in training. Yoda and Obi-Wan weren't likely to make grand displays because they were trying to hide from Vader & the Emperor, and that would have attracted them. That's not to say that Lucas didn't make it overblown and overused in the prequels, or didn't severely retconn the way Jedi's used the force, but it was only more subtle in the original trilogy because the focus of the story wasn't on fully trained force users, it was on 1 Jedi-in-training and his friends.

Yeah, I agree with this. The problem isn't that the Jedi gained a bunch of stuff in the prequels, it's more that there are so many more of them, who are better trained, and they scale in really bizarre ways.

One hermit in a swamp who can lift an X-Wing? That's... well it's pretty cool and mysterious. When Yoda busted that trick out, neither Luke nor the viewer had seen a display of The Force on that scale before. It was a Big Deal, and it let Luke know just how far he had to go.

Now in the prequels, you've got whole cities full of dudes who can do tricks like this, and a society and audience well aware of that fact already. The practical ramifications of having so many force users around are just really strange.

There's good reason that many sci-fi and fantasy settings are based on the Lost Technology trope - it's lazy, sure, but at least as people are rediscovering the magic or whatever there's a sense of wonder going on as the audience (and the characters) are learning about it.

As somebody else quoted earlier in the thread: when everybody is special, nobody is.

EDIT to add:

It's difficult to imagine that there will be many Jedi in the upcoming sequels, which gives them a great opportunity to return the mystery to the Force. It just seems like a much better setting than the prequels had, and I hope they don't squander it.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

LarryC is totally correct. Yoda is a master, not a friggin' superball. The entire Yoda/Dooku fight was an abomination. All the jumping around flippy showoff crap should have been left to Maul and Obi Wan; Yoda/Dooku should have been Yoda barely moving and Dooku getting more and more frantic until Yoda kills him with his own saber or something equally cool.

EDIT: Like the swordfight in Princess Bride. /EDIT

Anakin/Obi Wan wasn't a masterpiece, it was a mediocre dance routine, done without soul.

I agree wholeheartedly that the Yoda fight was ridiculous. He should have been exerting just enough force to deflect whatever was thrown at him, not bouncing around like a hyperactive squirrel. However I don't think that's how all lightsaber fights should be, which is what Larry seemed to be suggesting. I think Anakin in particular would be more prone to flashy fighting.

Stengah wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:

LarryC is totally correct. Yoda is a master, not a friggin' superball. The entire Yoda/Dooku fight was an abomination. All the jumping around flippy showoff crap should have been left to Maul and Obi Wan; Yoda/Dooku should have been Yoda barely moving and Dooku getting more and more frantic until Yoda kills him with his own saber or something equally cool.

EDIT: Like the swordfight in Princess Bride. /EDIT

Anakin/Obi Wan wasn't a masterpiece, it was a mediocre dance routine, done without soul.

I agree wholeheartedly that the Yoda fight was ridiculous. He should have been exerting just enough force to deflect whatever was thrown at him, not bouncing around like a hyperactive squirrel. However I don't think that's how all lightsaber fights should be, which is what Larry seemed to be suggesting. I think Anakin in particular would be more prone to flashy fighting.

Agreed; hence my comment about Maul and Obi Wan being more showoff-y.

The Anakin/Obi Wan fight wasn't bad because of how it was presented, it was bad because they looked like they were performing a choreographed routine.

As a quick comment on the last few dozen posts about the fights...

In the original trilogy Vader, played by David Prowse, had to fight the way he did, a classic mid-level defensive Japanese katana style, mainly because the actor playing him couldn't raise his arms above his head because of the shoulder pads on the costume and he was extremely limited as far as overall mobility went. Obi-Wan, played by Alec Guinness, used a fencing style as Guinness was apparently a very proficient fencer and they actually had to reign him in a few times because he was being a bit too agressive with Prowse.

As for the Maul fight scene, Ray Park is trained in Shaolin Kung Fu, kickboxing and wushu so naturally they're going to use him in a flashy kung-fu flick style fight scene. It's just what he does and he's good at it. From everything I've seen apparently Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen were described as "natural athletes" and they were constantly having to slow down the fights between McGregor and Park because they were going through the fight routine so fast that they felt people watching it on the screen wouldn't be able to tell what was going on. In a few practice videos of McGregor and Christensen in the gym the two guys were just going at it full-tilt whipping through their moves like crazy. It was really impressive even if it is just a showy dance with sticks. I actually wish they hadn't slowed their scenes down.

gore wrote:
Stengah wrote:

Vader easily deflected any and all blaster bolts shot at him. Obi-Wan sensed Alderaan's destruction from across the galaxy. Yoda lifted an x-wing out of a swamp. Luke was able to telepathically call to Leia for help. Vader killed people just by thinking about it, and could even do it over the comms system! The main reason we didn't see over-the-top force displays was that outside of Vader, the Emperor, Obi-Wan, and Yoda, all the force users were dead, or still in training. Yoda and Obi-Wan weren't likely to make grand displays because they were trying to hide from Vader & the Emperor, and that would have attracted them. That's not to say that Lucas didn't make it overblown and overused in the prequels, or didn't severely retconn the way Jedi's used the force, but it was only more subtle in the original trilogy because the focus of the story wasn't on fully trained force users, it was on 1 Jedi-in-training and his friends.

Yeah, I agree with this. The problem isn't that the Jedi gained a bunch of stuff in the prequels, it's more that there are so many more of them, who are better trained, and they scale in really bizarre ways.

One hermit in a swamp who can lift an X-Wing? That's... well it's pretty cool and mysterious. When Yoda busted that trick out, neither Luke nor the viewer had seen a display of The Force on that scale before. It was a Big Deal, and it let Luke know just how far he had to go.

Now in the prequels, you've got whole cities full of dudes who can do tricks like this, and a society and audience well aware of that fact already. The practical ramifications of having so many force users around are just really strange.

There's good reason that many sci-fi and fantasy settings are based on the Lost Technology trope - it's lazy, sure, but at least as people are rediscovering the magic or whatever there's a sense of wonder going on as the audience (and the characters) are learning about it.

As somebody else quoted earlier in the thread: when everybody is special, nobody is.

EDIT to add:

It's difficult to imagine that there will be many Jedi in the upcoming sequels, which gives them a great opportunity to return the mystery to the Force. It just seems like a much better setting than the prequels had, and I hope they don't squander it.

What I was expecting with the Jedi was more the Gandalf effect. This guy is all powerful, but he barely uses it except for subtle ways. But then he goes toe-to-toe with a Balrog, a beast that LOOKS all powerful and is certainly fearful, and kills it.

When I was a kid I felt the same way about Obi-Wan and Yoda, that they were more powerful than they hinted at. I mean, why WOULD two old guys fight with lightsabers when they could just, say, chuck the Millenium Falcon at each other?

I feel like most of the powers in the prequels were a result of Lucas' constant erection for special effects.

ccesarano wrote:

I feel like most of the powers in the prequels were a result of Lucas' constant erection for special effects.

Those first eight words aren't necessary.

Well, you could add "and money" at the end in that case.

@Kehama:
Maul/Obi Wan was a solid fight, and their exuberance and athleticism matched the characters. Anakin/Obi Wan looks like a scripted fight. There are just too many places where one person does an unlikely (and largely unwieldy) block before the other person's strike has really started.

Oh, and Vader was a total badass; badasses don't break a sweat.

Regarding Lucas' erection, I think it's fair to point out that he was always into pushing technical boundaries.

I recently had the opportunity to be in the audience for a special screening curated by Francis Ford Coppola out in St. Helena. It is a small theatre (140 seats), so the Q&A session with him afterwards was very intimate. The guy is very candid about his career, and he spent a good chunk of it talking about all the technical innovations that he and Lucas did. 5.1 surround sound, aka THX? They came up with that. That second camera shooting video that the director can then immediately watch a take from his chair? They came up with that too.

And the special effects milestones he achieved with the original trilogy is not really worth mentioning since it's common knowledge.

Now, does that make up for some of the missteps with the prequels? YMMV. Personally, I think he should have took a step back and let someone else direct them, as he clearly was out of practice being in that role. But, I am very curious to see what he does next, as it seems he's trying to free himself from the Star Wars shackles to try and do some more personal projects.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

Anakin/Obi Wan looks like a scripted fight. There are just too many places where one person does an unlikely (and largely unwieldy) block before the other person's strike has really started.

?

IMAGE(http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9uv9vJp541qc3g7lo1_500.gif)

doublepost

nel e nel wrote:

Regarding Lucas' erection, I think it's fair to point out that he was always into pushing technical boundaries.

I recently had the opportunity to be in the audience for a special screening curated by Francis Ford Coppola out in St. Helena. It is a small theatre (140 seats), so the Q&A session with him afterwards was very intimate. The guy is very candid about his career, and he spent a good chunk of it talking about all the technical innovations that he and Lucas did. 5.1 surround sound, aka THX? They came up with that. That second camera shooting video that the director can then immediately watch a take from his chair? They came up with that too.

And the special effects milestones he achieved with the original trilogy is not really worth mentioning since it's common knowledge.

Now, does that make up for some of the missteps with the prequels? YMMV. Personally, I think he should have took a step back and let someone else direct them, as he clearly was out of practice being in that role. But, I am very curious to see what he does next, as it seems he's trying to free himself from the Star Wars shackles to try and do some more personal projects.

No doubt Lucas has pushed the boundaries in film in a lot of ways on a technical level, but as was brought up in an article posted about the PS4 and, in particular, David Cage, over in the PS4 thread, limitations can ultimately create much more satisfying product. The X-Wing is iconic. The Tie-Fighter is iconic. The sound effect of the Tie Fighter is bad ass. All I can remember from the prequels is that one Naboo vehicle and the Solar Sail ship, and the only thing I recall about that is the sail.

George Lucas was much better when he had to actually push boundaries.

I like the idea of him doing personal projects, though. I'd like to see him try something that isn't Star Wars.

ccesarano wrote:

I like the idea of him doing personal projects, though. I'd like to see him try something that isn't Star Wars.

Who has two thumbs and can't wait for Red Tails II: the Re-reddening?

Actually, um, probably nobody.

Stengah:

I agree wholeheartedly that the Yoda fight was ridiculous. He should have been exerting just enough force to deflect whatever was thrown at him, not bouncing around like a hyperactive squirrel. However I don't think that's how all lightsaber fights should be, which is what Larry seemed to be suggesting. I think Anakin in particular would be more prone to flashy fighting.

Absolutely NOT. I'm a fan of Hong Kong action cinema, but I'm a fan of good Hong Kong action cinema. I did say that the prequel fights were bad in one thing: the choreography kind of sucked. In the prequels, it's the reverse. The choreography was the only thing that was good.

THIS, is what I mean:

Grenn posted:

What always got me about the duels in Empire and Jedi were the emotions displayed in the fighting. You could tell that Vader was just toying with Luke by using one hand. When he got angry at him, Luke was completely on the defensive. and even lost a hand. Then in Jedi, Vader used his feelings for Leia to elicit a very emotion response in the form of Luke forgetting to even fight properly. He ends up wailing on Vader's sword, not ever trying to win. That was cool. In the Revenge fight, the only real part that I liked was when they were both stuck on the same platform in the lava river. There was no jumping, just swinging. Then it was ruined by the high ground comment.

See? Story. Drama. The fight itself has a story that is shown, not told, and the story-within-the-fight develops the characters for the larger plot. Why is Darth holding back? How incalculably strong is he that he can even hold back against a Jedi-in-training? What's Luke's reaction to adversity?

It's often said that a thing reaches perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. There were lots of minutes that could have improved the prequels, if only they were left on the cutting room floor. Contrast with fight scenes from The Matrix. I've watched that movie forward and back, side to side, and inwards out. There is not a single second of action work in that movie that isn't telling us something essential and interesting.

I could say the same thing about Drunken Master, whereas Drunken Master 2 was a little bit of a showcase of Jackie Chan's mastery of drunken boxing. Lots of fanservice, but still not over the top; since he only shows each difficult and iconic move once.

It's not the style of the fight that matters, but how well the fight scene is done. I have 0 problems with wushu-style fights, but I can't stand it when there's nothing really important going on that hasn't already been established in the last 5 minutes. So Obiwan and Maul are fighting. You shouldn't take all that long to show that. Tell me something interesting.

EDIT: I do have one caveat with using wushu, now that I think about it.

Fencing fights and kendo-style fights show us the menace of the swords and the tension between the fighters mainly through how cautious they are with getting hit at all. You can see Darth in "A New Hope" gingerly evading Obiwan's thrusts. He implies that he doesn't respect the old man's powers, but his actions say different. (That's a story point, by the way).

Wushu and kung fu fights don't show intent to kill and lethality in the same way. They do so in three chief ways:

1. Having the protagonist or antagonist dramatically kill minor characters with their kung fu.
2. Gratuitous environmental damage.
3. Visibly showing lethality through "grazing hits," that nonetheless visibly sap character vitality.

These aspects were noticeably absent in the Obiwan-Maul and in the Obiwan-Anakin fight, at least as far as I can recall.

Redwing wrote:

I personally found the Lightsaber fight in the Phantom Menace to be pretty great, up there with the Matrix lobby fight as one of my favs. And I find the ones in the original trilogy painfully narmtastic to watch now, especially the geriatric fight at the end of New Hope. It's the one thing I think the prequels do universally better (all subjective of course, I like lots of crap people hate).

Late to the party, but your argument is invalid because you linked to TV Tropes.

Just saying... when Yoda went nuts versus the Count I almost jumped out of my seat. I love that fight. It demonstrated how awesome Yoda is. You can hate all you want on the prequels, but you have to realize a lot of people liked them (aside from the space cows of Naboo parts).

I have the originals memorized word for word to this day, but I still did not hate or even dislike the prequels.

bnpederson wrote:
Redwing wrote:

I personally found the Lightsaber fight in the Phantom Menace to be pretty great, up there with the Matrix lobby fight as one of my favs. And I find the ones in the original trilogy painfully narmtastic to watch now, especially the geriatric fight at the end of New Hope. It's the one thing I think the prequels do universally better (all subjective of course, I like lots of crap people hate).

Late to the party, but your argument is invalid because you linked to TV Tropes. ;)

Hey, tanking other people's productivity doesn't invalidate my argument!

Also this thread got away from me a bit, catching up... People can argue all about the deeper meaning shown in the original Obi-Wan/Vader fight all they like, it'll still look like two old dudes fighting with walking frames.

Star Wars is meant to be pulpy and flashy! Lets not forget that Obi-Wan does a delightful little spin in that original fight. It's terrible, but it's there.

Flashy or no, I honestly can't remember the choreography to the fight in A New Hope. I just remember Obi-Wan's eyes, which had this sort of "I'm not leaving alive" acknowledgement to them. I mean, there's one moment where they're basically tapping their lightsabers together, as if Darth is just teasing Obi-Wan, and the look Obi-Wan is giving Darth Vader is intense.

I quite like the Adywan version of the fight, even if the music is a little bit overbearing in the clip.

And the twirl is still silly.

Overbearing is right. I liked the silence better.

Y'know what? The fight isn't flashy, but I like it. It looks like two people having a sword fight. Two people that are actually studying each other's movements.

I dunno. Probably biased.

ccesarano wrote:

Overbearing is right. I liked the silence better.

Silence added gravitas when he catches a glimpse of Luke and then resigns himself to his fate. Luke's theme kicks in all soft and subtle as he pulls his lightsaber back. Then Luke's world crumbles as Obi-Wan dies and he cries out in desperation.

Yeah. I like it much better with the silence.

The fight choreography itself is pretty stiff, but look at Vader's body language. He talks all kinds of mess about how Obi-Wan is weak and now Darth is the master, but he orients his body away from him. He respects the old man and is wary of him.

Now I really want to go back and watch the original trilogy. Too bad I only have DVD's of the special Edition

Grenn wrote:

Then Luke's world crumbles as Obi-Wan dies and he cries out in desperation.

Yeah, that was great. Especially coming all of 45 minutes after the aunt and uncle who raised him from infancy were murdered in cold blood and he responded with a shrug. "Guess that means I'm free to go princess-rescuing with a dude I've known for less than a day." (-:

ccesarano wrote:

Overbearing is right. I liked the silence better.

Y'know what? The fight isn't flashy, but I like it. It looks like two people having a sword fight. Two people that are actually studying each other's movements.

I dunno. Probably biased.

It looks that way on purpose, because it (the choreography) was derived from sport fighting, in which people are actually fighting (in a sense), rather than executing choreography. When their swords clash, it's not because they want to hit each other's weapons; it's because one person wants to hit the other guy, and the other guy is defending.

It doesn't really look all that different from sport fencing or kendo.

Of course, Obiwan is using fencing-for-stage which makes the fight choreo look a bit different.

It's not that wushu or kung fu cannot evoke the same feeling. It can. Some of the best fight scenes on film were executed in kung fu. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has some exceptional fights in it. So does Rumble in the Bronx.

The Qui-Gon/Obiwan/Maul fight had three main storyboard points:

1. Quigon dies
2. Obiwan is defeated
3. Maul can take them both on at the same time
4. Jedi are disciplined, Sith are emotoinally driven

These narrative points are sparse, and they were not shown as powerfully as they might have. An obvious difference in fighting style could make point 4 a lot more powerful, but this was unfortunately not exploited. The Jedi could have been made to look more considered, more graceful; especially with slow-mo close-ups of Quigon's calm, collected demeanor even during a heated exchange of blows.

Point 2 is not delivered with as much drama and story as it could have. In the last scene, Obiwan totally loses it, and is soundly defeated. We could reason that this is because he lost his Jedi calm, but the point isn't visually arresting. His fighting style doesn't become dramatically more erratic than it was before, and there's no clear indication that he is less powerful than he was when the fight started, other than he was defeated.

Point 1 is uninteresting apart from its own position in the plot. Part of that is because Quigon is so weak as a character, and because their relationship was not developed as much as it could. I saw, but did not feel, Obiwan's anguish at Quigon's death. But much of it is because we don't really know why Quigon got defeated. It looks like it was just a cheap shot that did him in, but even that is unclear. A directed choreography that tells the story apart from looking good and clean would have not only made Quigon a much stronger character, but also made his defeat a lot more intelligible.

Man, I'd love to see more lightsaber fights handled like Kendo.