Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Maybe a focus group? Like, if you had asked me about the original fight scenes before the prequels came out, I would have said they were kinda lame. After seeing the prequels, I now have a pretty deep appreciation for how good the fight scenes look given what they had to work with.

Gavinmad_sl said:

Maybe a focus group? Like, if you had asked me about the original fight scenes before the prequels came out, I would have said they were kinda lame.

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Ridiculous.

The Ancient_sl said:

Ridiculous.

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More emotion in 10 minutes than in the 3 prequels, including "fights"

I was 17 when Phantom Menace came out, what the hell did I know? They were basically just swinging glow sticks at each other, why couldn't they be going all kung fu with their lightsabers?

And then Phantom Menace came out and now I know why. And yes, the Luke vs Vader fight is amazing and very full of emotion. Hell despite the fact that it's an expressionless mask, you can read the conflict in his face when Palpatine is killing Luke. Most epic part of the trilogy is the sword-fight leading into the force lightning scene.

As Vader falls, Luke follows up by slamming the lightsaber down on Vader's, tattooing away before finally cutting away his hand... that moment might just be the single most epic moment in any swordfight ever.

You do NOT need anything other than good drama. Fight dancing or choreography, it's just masturbation.

Jait_sl said:

As Vader falls, Luke follows up by slamming the lightsaber down on Vader's, tattooing away before finally cutting away his hand... that moment might just be the single most epic moment in any swordfight ever.

You do NOT need anything other than good drama. Fight dancing or choreography, it's just masturbation.

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It's almost like they didn't have advanced CGI so they had to put a dumb dude in a dumb half robot suit and have another dumb dude swing dumb sticks at him which turns out tends to portray more realistic natural motions instead of mimicking high school baton twirling state champions.

I think you can have all the emotion and physical nature and still have it be better choreographed at the same time. There's a sweet spot in the middle somewhere between the Original Trilogy and the Prequels nonsense.

As I've said, the Anakin vs Obi Wan fight came very close to getting it right. It's mostly non-stop super aggressive both guys going at each other 100%, the way they keep moving makes the choreography seem subtler compared to Phantom Menace. Then it's completely ruined by the 'lets stop and spin our sabers around' in the middle and the retarded 'high ground gives me a +5 hit bonus and I automatically crit' ending.

*edit*

If they wanted Anakin's arrogance to be the reason he lost, they should have done something like having Obi-Wan jump away and have the jump be too far for Anakin, then when he tries it he scrabbles at a ledge then falls into the edge of the lava flow and loses his limbs that way. Not that awkward 'i have the high ground' shit.

I prefer the original style of lightsaber fighting. It carried more weight and I just dont like seeing Jedi flying around like a kung fu movie. Like Sterling said, you can speed it up a bit a, do a lot more with choreography without turning it to some wire fighting kung fu shit.

Sterling_sl said:

I think you can have all the emotion and physical nature and still have it be better choreographed at the same time. There's a sweet spot in the middle somewhere between the Original Trilogy and the Prequels nonsense.

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I don't know I think choreographed implies dancing in lieu of teaching them the proper attacks/defenses and planning a fight. The reason the original series fights were believable was because it was real people doing real things, not practicing dance moves even if they weren't technically very proficient. In the same way Ray Park was decent but the Jedi dance moves around him were fake and absurd because Ray Park knew how to handle himself.

The fights in Rebels are kinda dumb too. They are so sped up and twitchy that all you see are sabers smacking together with no animation in between. Disappointing.

The worst jedi stuff in the prequels weren't the duels though, it was all the weightless chopping through empty air at things that obviously weren't there.

But yeah, it's hard to top Luke going into a batshit dark side roid rage because it was easy to imagine that more was going on than what was visible. Like he was hammering Vader with waves of hate that were staggering him like physical blows. (it was in the novelization IIRC)

The choreography when Luke gives in to his anger and is advancing on Vader (3:30 in the video I linked) is perfect. You don't need anything more than that.

Kreugen_sl said:

But yeah, it's hard to top Luke going into a batshit dark side roid rage because it was easy to imagine that more was going on than what was visible. Like he was hammering Vader with waves of hate that were staggering him like physical blows. (it was in the novelization IIRC)

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Thanks for the reminder that the novels are as bad as the prequels.

Because Star Wars, Empire and Return actually usedBob Andersonto train and as a stunt double for Vader in Empire and Return who was an actual Olympic fencer and sword fighter.Bob Anderson Obiturary

That tumble that Darth Vader did was straight out of Mel Brooks movie.

I really need to not watch those films again, and just remember them as being epic because Every time I see a clip I'm like wow they had some cheesy crap in even the original trilogy.

Column_sl said:

That tumble that Darth Vader did was straight out of Mel Brooks movie.

I really need to not watch those films again, and just remember them as being epic because Every time I see a clip I'm like wow they had some cheesy crap in even the original trilogy.

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Cut off both your legs and replace them with robot legs and incase yourself with 100 lbs of robotics and body armor. Lean back a bit and hold onto a railing with only one hand and then let go. That fall was pretty spot on.

Drakain_sl said:

Cut off both your legs and replace them with robot legs and incase yourself with 100 lbs of robotics and body armor. Lean back a bit and hold onto a railing with only one hand and then let go. That fall was pretty spot on.

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LOL, you are an idiot. That dude was floating on kung fu wires

Column_sl said:

LOL, you are an idiot. That dude was floating on kung fu wires

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He used ForceFlip(tm).

It was the ForceTuckandRoll{TM}

Column_sl said:

LOL, you are an idiot. That dude was floating on kung fu wires

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Haha my bad. I was referring to when Luke was power slamming blows on him at the end of the fight. Not the flips at the start lol. You just said tumble so I went to the only part I remembered Luke knocking him down.

The only sword fight that ever really mattered!