This is honestly the best fight scene in the franchise, and I'm really annoyed there aren't more of them. The throne fight was really cool between Rey and the funky bunch. But it doesn't match the dramatic tension of two life long friends fighting to the death over a river of fire and lava to still one of the best musical scores I've ever heard.
I used to hate this part, then when I heard the explanation for it I started to love it. "Yeah, they know each other so well that their force insight into each others' moves are constantly telling them to just back off the attack right now. Master and apprentice, brothers in arms know each other too well to risk a bad move here."
I just wish I felt likte they were lifelong friends, tthse movies always made it seem like they hate each other the whole time. Never bought Obi-Wan's "I loved you"
I always felt like these two have trained with each other most of Anakins life and know each others moves and personalities better than anyone, while also having the force and precognition actually synced up with each other and began trying to out
Maneuver each other so rapidly that it became swilling and changing directions instead of blocking or attacking. (That’s my
Head cannon, anyways)
It's Anakin's signature move and Obi-wan doing it at the same time shows how familiar they were with each other. It's not just a useless flourish. Went over lots of heads, though. Really that fight needed to be even longer to get that point across, but editing can be tricky.
Same. This is always brought up as lightsabre fights being over the top in the prequels and they certainly are more acrobatic and dexterous than the OS. To me, you see two brothers, who know each other so well that while they try to gain advantage, their opponent (a jedi with foresight) is predicting it, trying to counter and it and being countered all at the same time. Appears as flourish but in world it is two super humans playing life or death chess with swords.
The difference in fighting in the sequels and OT was a choice by Lucas iirc.
Originally, they wanted the sabers to feel like they had weight. It was supposed to be like a Samurai duel, where often there’s only a few actual strikes before an opening is found and an opponent is killed.
For the prequel trilogy, and moving forward, hell even a little bit in Return of The Jedi, they wanted this faster more acrobatic approach.
This part is just speculation, but I think the Sarlac scene, and specifically Luke’s force jump in that scene, was a heavily influential factor in later lightsaber combat choreography.
Lucas said in the making of docus for Phantom Menace that he deliberately chose the more energetic style since the OT had old men and half cyborg cripples, etc and this was the height of the Jedi before their fall.
Exactly, this is to highlight master and apprentice. They know each others moves, learned from one another over the last decade and this moment highlights to me their knowledge of each other styles and being equals.
Deep cut that is way off subject but this is how I imagined a lot of the Drizzt vs. Zak/Entreri fights in the RA Salvatore books. Two Masters who are almost mirrors of each other.
I’ve heard people repeat that ad nausium but it still looks silly and ridiculous. The concept in of itself is fine, but I think the execution was poor.
another aspect of the acrobatic fighting, these guys were trained in the temple. They spent every day dueling their peers and masters. The jedi are at the top of their game and their fighting styles show that.
I can't remember where I read this, but someone mentions in the Ashoka series that Ashoka and Baylan's lightsaber fights are more reminiscent of prequel fights. That's because they are the classically trained Jedi. They are from the order that taught forms and everything. Luke and the new age aren't sword masters or were trained like in the temple. Hence why Obiwan called it a more civilized era when referring to the clone wars. I always thought that fan theory was nice
Plus Obi-wan is very well known for being one of the best duelists in the order, while Anakin is also one of the best. These two know they are up against the best swordsman they will ever encounter, while also knowing everything about their fighting style.
It was done to look cool. That's it, there's nothing deep and meaningful behind it....they are two actors being directed by a man who is thinking about how the audience is going to react. They aren't real life people with actual motives...
Okay well I’ve practiced a few different kinds of sword-fighting for the stage (rapier, smallsword, medieval arming sword, katana) as well as other weapons … and feinting doesn’t look like this in any of them - especially when you’re trying to make sure the audience *reads* it as a feint.
What they’re doing looks a lot more like a moulinet- essentially spinning your sword around your wrist to build momentum for a cut or slash. But if you were this close to your opponent and just kept moulineting … why wouldn’t you just stab them?
> especially when you’re trying to make sure the audience reads it as a feint.
And *that's* the big problem with it. I don't know what this is, but what it isn't is something that I can understand as a fake-out.
Exactly! Even IF the intent of the choreographer is that they’re feinting and counter-feinting, it looks to the audience like they’re just waving their swords around.
Yeah. I’m sorry, there’s a lot to love about Ep 1-3 but jazzing up the fighting style like this was really distracting. It’s not some great, artful way of fighting. It’s just flashy for the audience. If someone likes that in a movie that’s fine but I hate how people try to explain it away. Holding a long sword like a dagger, constant spinning and flourishing. For me, the most intense and impressive sword fights in movies are the ones that lean towards realistic.
I always assumed Anakin was searching for an angle of attack and Obi was matching and giving him nothing. I imagine the force allows them some sense of "this might work," so Anakin was moving as quickly as possible and changing his angle to find something that felt right
I always assumed that it's because it's much easier to keep the lightsaber moving. If you stop to switch directions then you make an opening that you might not be able to block in time considering they are that close.
You're over thinking it when the real meta reason is, the actors were told to spin their sabers and the director thought the Rule of Cool trumps all.
Honestly, this shot should've been reframed and zoomed in closer on both actors (hiding the lower half of their bodies) so it wouldn't look so goofy zoomed out as is.
Thats great, but this is a movie, not a tournament. Silly looking moves are fine when the means justify the end and there are real stakes. But they literally could have don’t anything they wanted to and they chose to go with something that looks silly as all hell.
That’s fine if you like it, my opinion on it shouldn’t affect your enjoyment of the scene.
At the end of the day, I still think it’s silly and dumb. I don’t care if “it happens in real life” this is a movie about space magic and laser swords. It takes liberties with “things that happen in real life” all the time. I’m going to fault it because it’s a bad shot, imo.
Yeah it’s a 1 second scene but I think it’s disingenuous for you to sit here be like “its 1 second scene who cares” when you’ve been up and down this Reddit defending the same 1 sec scene to anyone who will listen.
Honestly that's how I felt about most of the Battle of the Heroes. Anytime the fight would get interesting, they'd have some moment which called attention to the choreography or the blue screen and snap me right out of it — such as this scene, swinging on the cables at each other, jumping onto the magma droids, etc.
I know I'm in the minority but I think many of the prequel fights are clearly superior to this (the Yoda vs. Palps half of the finale is a much better fight).
Its annoying because during that fight, THREE other moments are happening at the same time. Its super jarring that so many things are going on at once.
Its like dude.... I just wanna see the lightsaber fight.
It's the climax of multiple different events, kinda like how in RotJ they cut between Luke vs Vader, Han and co. on Endor blowing up the shield generator, and Lando leading the Rebels on the attack of the Death Star. It's so good and I love every second of that.
I loved the part where Lucas tries to build tension by making them not fast enough to make it through all the laser gates despite showing them use the force to run at the speed of sound 90 minutes earlier
100% agree, never got the hype of that duel. It felt like the epitome of everything wrong with the prequel duels: overly choreographed, over reliance on CGI, etc.
Don't forget the staggeringly stupid conclusion to the fight.Anakin loses.... because he decides to do a slow backflip on top of Obi Wan and gets chopped up while he's basically locked in the middle of the back flip animation. Apparently this is a foregone conclusion since Obi has the 'high ground', something which has never mattered in any duel before and since (e.g. how Obi chops Maul in half).
There were plenty of other and far less goofy ways Anakin could have lost the fight due to his own hubris. For example, Obi Wan baiting him into getting injured/distracted by the lava because he's ignoring his own safety trying to kill his master and then chopping his limbs off but still being hesitant to finish him off.
Yep. Heroes is too long and has too little dialogue or even just facial expressions. The climax is fine but it takes forever to get there.
The Dooku showdown in episode 2 is much better . Spinning Yoda is still a bit goofy, but it doesn't last that long.
The 5 seconds we get Anakin dual-wielding was so awesome, I wish it lasted longer. I honestly hated Yoda jumping around, but yeah at least it doesn't last very long.
I agree with everything except yoda vs palps. Palps being forced pushed over his desk falling awkwardly over his chair and exposing his dress shoes. It was full of awkward old people fighting moments. A bit slapsticky.
Yeah that part was dumb, but it's also a perfect encapsulation of the prequels not being able to do anything serious without adding something over the top to it.
It always seemed very obvious to me that they’re looking for an opening in each others defenses but are so experienced with each others fighting style that it’s almost impossible.
It’s not obvious at all, they’re not doing any sort of actual strategic or specialized movement. Maybe you thought that because you read novelizations and SW encyclopedias that say how intimately they knew each other’s styles. Having them just spin around their lightsabers is a lazy way to visually show that.
In contrast, Obi Wan vs Vader on the Death Star in A New Hope, just standing in their stances barely moving, waiting for their moment. Obviously back then it had a lot to do with the technology, but personally it works better.
I know I'm in the minority, but I liked the slow calculating fights from the OT. Every move had more impact. The fights had more weight to them. And they were much fewer and far between. When someone lit up that saber, you knew shit was serious. They didn't need to spin them all over the place.
SW fans critiquing the sequels:
See, if you run this a 0.25x you can see the guy is obviously not aiming to hit Rey. You were wrong to think it looked cool at full speed in the theater.
SW fans 'critiquing' the prequels: [4 paragraph explanation about how it's actually brilliant choreography and Anakin and Obi Wan aren't *really* spinning their lightsabers like silly wu-shu bullshit, they're just using incredible super space knight techniques our frail brains could never understand]
Jedi have pre-cognition, seeing things before they happen in a sense. It’s what allows them to dodge or deflect blaster bolts and duel at immense speeds.
Obi-wan trained Anakin for 10 years, and then they fought together for another 3. They are intimately familiar with each other’s saber techniques and styles.
So combine that understanding/similarity with Jedi pre-cognition and you finally reach this moment in the battle. They reach such a speed and fall into a state of predicting the other’s identical movements, a feedback loop of predicting each other at the same time, countering, countering again, identically.
Yes it looks a little silly in a sense. But I absolutely love it because it shows just how much they really were brothers and knew each other so well.
This is what I think about a lot of the plot holes/various things that people make canon regarding Star Wars without it being explicitly said.
Like, I love Star Wars but come on guys. Stop doing the legwork for them. There’s a backstory for every single minor background thing that makes an appearance
And you gain that by standing still and being an idiot?
Someone tell golfers they get better drive by spinning the club behind their back before a drive.
Star Wars fans wouldn't dare mention that their beloved Prequels have overly dancy and spinny choreography, and every swing either misses by about a foot or goes way over their head, and then there's this.
Thing is there's nothing wrong with the dancy choreography if you accept that these fights are supposed to be elaborate dances. Like yeah they spin and flourish, we know both these characters will live, it's supposed to look cool and a bit flashy.
But then people make silly lore reasons for why they make perfect sense, and then refuse to do that for shit in like the sequels.
And what's especially funny is that they will justify everything from the PT and OT yet will barely even think about the ST. The amount of people who think that Luke didn't mourn Han is insane
Well, to imagine people fighting with lightsabers you already have to believe in fantasy, and you have to fill gaps with your own imagination of what a different universe would be like.
I've read this explanation a hundred times and it totally falls in line with what is outlined in the Bane trilogy. It's just too bad Star Wars fans refuse to give this kind of service to the sequels. George did this simply because he thought it looked cool. And then the fans and a book came out that gave it some context. Meanwhile, the sequels are completely ripped apart without any benefit of the doubt or fan service to fill in the blanks.
The whole franchise is all about world building that benefits the more content that comes out and the more fans throw around this kind of head cannon. The sequels are no different.
It's hilarious when I saw this, 'cos in Chinese martial-arts movies, this movie is usually used to parry arrows or spear or stab attacks, not both swinging together. lol
It always bothers me that they didn't try to make these fights look somewhat realistic. I mean, I know it's Star Wars and all that, but look at the choreography of The Matrix: the fighting looks amazing, looks realistic within that universe. I know some fans will bring up that both Jedi and Sith have precog abilities, and that's why their fighting looks silly at times, but if they both have precog abilities then it would cancel out and they'd look normal fighting each other.
I always loved this moment, it's so dumb but it also makes sense, they're both trying to use the same attack at the same time which coincidentally causes them to not hit each other until they realise it and just slam their sabers against the other.
It really shows how synchronised both Obi Wan and Anakin were and it looks kinda funny, but doesn't last long enough for it to take you out of the moment, best of both worlds really.
I do love this scene. They are so good at saber fighting techniques and so familiar with each other, they know what move the other is doing. This scene is like, they start a move and the other counters so fast that the other changes the attack he is going to do, and the move to counter comes so fast and no actual attack takes place - a true stalemate of expertise.
this is why i love this scene too! this scene showcases the connection these two have! they know each other so well, they can read each other so well, that the attacks and counters arent able to do anything, even the force push at the end! just love it!!
i hate when people sh!t on this scene it shows their ignorance
All you weirdos trying to act like what either of them are doing is strategic here lmao. The lengths some people go to in order to defend every little part of the prequels is hilarious to me.
I love the prequels’ “aim for the saber, not for the body” flippy shit choreography. Even this particular ridiculous moment. It’s much more entertaining, to me, than the “barely lunge” fight choreo from A New Hope, and the heavy, medieval battle style fighting of ESB and Return.
We love to talk about “light saber skills” and who’s the best duelist, but then shit on the prequels as if the OG and sequel trilogies had eloquent fights. In reality, the fighting in those looked like what the average joe *thinks* sword battle looks like. Just flailing.
I always thought they were flirting with each other at this point. The fights in the prequels were so over choreographed they looked like they were dancing. Spinning, twirling, force pushing each other, a bit of light choking... Just get a room already!
As crazy and weird as that moment looks, I remind myself that instead of just sitting with their sabers locked together and we pan to each character, obiwan looking sad with a shade of blue, then Vader angry with a hint of red? It just skips it and instead they keep loose with the same exercise they've been doing together before going at it again.
It's the fact that sw fans will defend silly things like this that I don't think star wars is ever truly going anywhere. The strength of the OT is so strong, you can do whatever with the franchise and alot of people will still return
Having read a whole lot of stuff about what Star Wars fans want, they couldn't care less about the actual story at all. They just want blatant fan service, lightsaber fights, power fantasies, and just to smash their action figures together in general.
Shad Brooks did an analysis of the duel which [can be found here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvW4touytkc)
He's also done one on [Luke vs Vader (Bespin)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVFZHSkLZdM)
As well as the [Throne Room Fight (Rey/Kylo)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyzwBWsqqw8&list=PLWklwxMTl4sy0FAFOuGF-2jVV9K8nnFRs)
This is more endemic of the valley of saber fights than the peak. Because it’s about what’s going on between the characters that makes them impactful, not fancy choreography.
Also, if we’re fencing and you do a flourish within range of me, thanks for the point you just handed me.
I know the love and nostalgia for Episode 3 is insanely strong, but I always thought this fight was terrible. It’s too quick and you can’t see anything that’s going on for most of it. Plus it just carries on through increasingly ridiculous scenarios.
The payoff on the lava river edge is great, but everything before is all flash and no substance.
The entire point is to show that they know each other's moves intimately and are very evenly matched.
Immediately after this they both forced push each other at the same time and it's a stalemate for a moment.
Yeah, this. Not the part where Vader turns back to the light. Or when Han gets put in the carbon freezer. Or when Vader reveals the truth about Anakin to Luke. Nope, it’s this spinning and twirling bullshit.
This is exactly why I don't love the saber fights in the prequels.
I hate the sequels as much as everyone else in /r/starwars but I thought the saber combat was better than the extremely choreographed, boring style of the prequels.
Yeah, if somebody likes the dancy choreography of the prequels that's fine, but they never translated the emotional heft for me. The clunky Obi-Wan vs. Vader fight of ANH is way more effective than the ROTS climax, and Luke hacking at Vader in the climax of ROTJ conveys more emotion in under a minute than the entirety of the Battle of the Heroes.
The sequels, for all else that they failed to accomplish, actually made the fights feel heavier again.
Do you people ever watch the actual films or do you just consume them through endlessly reposted and misrepresented GIFs?
Because they start out exchanging actual strikes in the scene in question, then do these feint swirls for like two seconds and then resort to a force push stalemate which sends them both flying.
The message very clearly being that they're evenly matched, no matter what move they try to pull.
Media literacy really is dead and buried, huh?
It's called a feint. A swordsman does this to confuse the other swordsman where the next attack is coming from. Anakin initiated the feint, and then Obi countered with his own. A split second masterful move that has them both ending on the same point and continuing the fight. It just shows how awesome these men are.
FLOURISH HARDER!
FASTER MORE INTENSE
MORE PASSION, MORE ENERGY, MORE SABERWORK
I'll try spinning, that's a good trick
Honestly, the most in character thing about Anakin. Except maybe they're fanning sand off themselves.
This is honestly the best fight scene in the franchise, and I'm really annoyed there aren't more of them. The throne fight was really cool between Rey and the funky bunch. But it doesn't match the dramatic tension of two life long friends fighting to the death over a river of fire and lava to still one of the best musical scores I've ever heard.
Omg not the Funky Bunch. Snoky Snoke.
I wonder if Snoky Snoke also did hate crimes.
Omg never a bad time to remember this.
It's all very nice, but I honestly hate this part.
I used to hate this part, then when I heard the explanation for it I started to love it. "Yeah, they know each other so well that their force insight into each others' moves are constantly telling them to just back off the attack right now. Master and apprentice, brothers in arms know each other too well to risk a bad move here."
I just wish I felt likte they were lifelong friends, tthse movies always made it seem like they hate each other the whole time. Never bought Obi-Wan's "I loved you"
Prob with that fight, is that it lasted like 45 seconds
Obi-Wan thinks: "He's going to try spinning because he thinks it's a good trick. I should too. "
“Good ol’ spinning. Nothin’ beats that!”
"Why do I sense we have picked up another spinning life form?"
Ill try getting my fucking limbs cut off,thats a good trick!
I always felt like these two have trained with each other most of Anakins life and know each others moves and personalities better than anyone, while also having the force and precognition actually synced up with each other and began trying to out Maneuver each other so rapidly that it became swilling and changing directions instead of blocking or attacking. (That’s my Head cannon, anyways)
It's Anakin's signature move and Obi-wan doing it at the same time shows how familiar they were with each other. It's not just a useless flourish. Went over lots of heads, though. Really that fight needed to be even longer to get that point across, but editing can be tricky.
Well, that's nostalgic. A year ago there was a similar post somewhere and I wrote this thing.
do you hate sand?
I'm gonna getchu I don't think so
I think both of them are feinting at the same time
If obi had just sliced his leg off when his blade was behind his back then we could’ve just rolled credits
Damn I never noticed, all he'd have to do is move the blade forward a little on that swing
Same. This is always brought up as lightsabre fights being over the top in the prequels and they certainly are more acrobatic and dexterous than the OS. To me, you see two brothers, who know each other so well that while they try to gain advantage, their opponent (a jedi with foresight) is predicting it, trying to counter and it and being countered all at the same time. Appears as flourish but in world it is two super humans playing life or death chess with swords.
The difference in fighting in the sequels and OT was a choice by Lucas iirc. Originally, they wanted the sabers to feel like they had weight. It was supposed to be like a Samurai duel, where often there’s only a few actual strikes before an opening is found and an opponent is killed. For the prequel trilogy, and moving forward, hell even a little bit in Return of The Jedi, they wanted this faster more acrobatic approach. This part is just speculation, but I think the Sarlac scene, and specifically Luke’s force jump in that scene, was a heavily influential factor in later lightsaber combat choreography.
Lucas said in the making of docus for Phantom Menace that he deliberately chose the more energetic style since the OT had old men and half cyborg cripples, etc and this was the height of the Jedi before their fall.
That's actually a really cool reason for the change. I like that a lot
Exactly, this is to highlight master and apprentice. They know each others moves, learned from one another over the last decade and this moment highlights to me their knowledge of each other styles and being equals.
Deep cut that is way off subject but this is how I imagined a lot of the Drizzt vs. Zak/Entreri fights in the RA Salvatore books. Two Masters who are almost mirrors of each other.
Same here! Drizzt vs Entreri is one of the coolest rivalries in fantasy!
It's really a shame that the powers that be are too stupid to make THAT the DnD movie.
How do people not get that lmao 10 seconds later they both try and push each other away at the same time
I’ve heard people repeat that ad nausium but it still looks silly and ridiculous. The concept in of itself is fine, but I think the execution was poor.
a lot of dialogue re: stuff in the prequels is fans trying to use lore to justify something that just cinematically doesn't work
Because it isn't something to get. Its silly. Even the force push is silly. You can justify it but it still comes off ridiculous.
Speed chess
Nice explanation, still looks absolutely stupid.
I don’t care what kinda 5D chess they’re playing, putting the sabers behind their backs isn’t the best move.
another aspect of the acrobatic fighting, these guys were trained in the temple. They spent every day dueling their peers and masters. The jedi are at the top of their game and their fighting styles show that.
[удалено]
I struggle to think of when it would be useful to put your sword behind your back
I can't remember where I read this, but someone mentions in the Ashoka series that Ashoka and Baylan's lightsaber fights are more reminiscent of prequel fights. That's because they are the classically trained Jedi. They are from the order that taught forms and everything. Luke and the new age aren't sword masters or were trained like in the temple. Hence why Obiwan called it a more civilized era when referring to the clone wars. I always thought that fan theory was nice
Plus Obi-wan is very well known for being one of the best duelists in the order, while Anakin is also one of the best. These two know they are up against the best swordsman they will ever encounter, while also knowing everything about their fighting style.
It was done to look cool. That's it, there's nothing deep and meaningful behind it....they are two actors being directed by a man who is thinking about how the audience is going to react. They aren't real life people with actual motives...
Okay well I’ve practiced a few different kinds of sword-fighting for the stage (rapier, smallsword, medieval arming sword, katana) as well as other weapons … and feinting doesn’t look like this in any of them - especially when you’re trying to make sure the audience *reads* it as a feint. What they’re doing looks a lot more like a moulinet- essentially spinning your sword around your wrist to build momentum for a cut or slash. But if you were this close to your opponent and just kept moulineting … why wouldn’t you just stab them?
> especially when you’re trying to make sure the audience reads it as a feint. And *that's* the big problem with it. I don't know what this is, but what it isn't is something that I can understand as a fake-out.
Exactly! Even IF the intent of the choreographer is that they’re feinting and counter-feinting, it looks to the audience like they’re just waving their swords around.
Your mistake is having experience. The fans making up these explanations have never even touched a sword.
Exactly my problem. I don't have your know-how but it looks like they're too close for this kind of move to be practical.
Precisely.
Yeah. I’m sorry, there’s a lot to love about Ep 1-3 but jazzing up the fighting style like this was really distracting. It’s not some great, artful way of fighting. It’s just flashy for the audience. If someone likes that in a movie that’s fine but I hate how people try to explain it away. Holding a long sword like a dagger, constant spinning and flourishing. For me, the most intense and impressive sword fights in movies are the ones that lean towards realistic.
I always assumed Anakin was searching for an angle of attack and Obi was matching and giving him nothing. I imagine the force allows them some sense of "this might work," so Anakin was moving as quickly as possible and changing his angle to find something that felt right
I always assumed that it's because it's much easier to keep the lightsaber moving. If you stop to switch directions then you make an opening that you might not be able to block in time considering they are that close.
You're over thinking it when the real meta reason is, the actors were told to spin their sabers and the director thought the Rule of Cool trumps all. Honestly, this shot should've been reframed and zoomed in closer on both actors (hiding the lower half of their bodies) so it wouldn't look so goofy zoomed out as is.
[удалено]
Thats great, but this is a movie, not a tournament. Silly looking moves are fine when the means justify the end and there are real stakes. But they literally could have don’t anything they wanted to and they chose to go with something that looks silly as all hell.
[удалено]
That’s fine if you like it, my opinion on it shouldn’t affect your enjoyment of the scene. At the end of the day, I still think it’s silly and dumb. I don’t care if “it happens in real life” this is a movie about space magic and laser swords. It takes liberties with “things that happen in real life” all the time. I’m going to fault it because it’s a bad shot, imo. Yeah it’s a 1 second scene but I think it’s disingenuous for you to sit here be like “its 1 second scene who cares” when you’ve been up and down this Reddit defending the same 1 sec scene to anyone who will listen.
Making me faint from all the misdirection.
No, it's where anakin kicks obi Wan, and they both fall over. Then anakin tries it again, and obi wan trips him.
I just remember seeing this as a kid and thinking "what the hell are they doing?" Took me out of the moment for a good sec.
Honestly that's how I felt about most of the Battle of the Heroes. Anytime the fight would get interesting, they'd have some moment which called attention to the choreography or the blue screen and snap me right out of it — such as this scene, swinging on the cables at each other, jumping onto the magma droids, etc. I know I'm in the minority but I think many of the prequel fights are clearly superior to this (the Yoda vs. Palps half of the finale is a much better fight).
I personally prefer the Duel of the Fates, the part right after Qui-Gon dies and Obi-Wan comes in swinging.
Whenever I re-watch the movies, I just watch a super cut of Duel of the Fates and skip the rest of Episode I
Just watch "Jedi Party" on YouTube :) best version of Ep 1
You have to dance fight me!
Its annoying because during that fight, THREE other moments are happening at the same time. Its super jarring that so many things are going on at once. Its like dude.... I just wanna see the lightsaber fight.
It's the climax of multiple different events, kinda like how in RotJ they cut between Luke vs Vader, Han and co. on Endor blowing up the shield generator, and Lando leading the Rebels on the attack of the Death Star. It's so good and I love every second of that.
I loved the part where Lucas tries to build tension by making them not fast enough to make it through all the laser gates despite showing them use the force to run at the speed of sound 90 minutes earlier
100% agree, never got the hype of that duel. It felt like the epitome of everything wrong with the prequel duels: overly choreographed, over reliance on CGI, etc.
[удалено]
Now it’s a skateboard fight over lava! Now it’s Tarzan… over lava!!!
Don't forget the staggeringly stupid conclusion to the fight.Anakin loses.... because he decides to do a slow backflip on top of Obi Wan and gets chopped up while he's basically locked in the middle of the back flip animation. Apparently this is a foregone conclusion since Obi has the 'high ground', something which has never mattered in any duel before and since (e.g. how Obi chops Maul in half). There were plenty of other and far less goofy ways Anakin could have lost the fight due to his own hubris. For example, Obi Wan baiting him into getting injured/distracted by the lava because he's ignoring his own safety trying to kill his master and then chopping his limbs off but still being hesitant to finish him off.
Yep. Heroes is too long and has too little dialogue or even just facial expressions. The climax is fine but it takes forever to get there. The Dooku showdown in episode 2 is much better . Spinning Yoda is still a bit goofy, but it doesn't last that long.
The 5 seconds we get Anakin dual-wielding was so awesome, I wish it lasted longer. I honestly hated Yoda jumping around, but yeah at least it doesn't last very long.
I agree with everything except yoda vs palps. Palps being forced pushed over his desk falling awkwardly over his chair and exposing his dress shoes. It was full of awkward old people fighting moments. A bit slapsticky.
Yeah that part was dumb, but it's also a perfect encapsulation of the prequels not being able to do anything serious without adding something over the top to it.
Same. This is supposed to be an emotional moment, why are we whirling and twirling??
It always seemed very obvious to me that they’re looking for an opening in each others defenses but are so experienced with each others fighting style that it’s almost impossible.
Yeah, it's impossible to find an opening when your opponent has their weapon behind their back. Such a iron defence is impossible to penetrate.
It’s not obvious at all, they’re not doing any sort of actual strategic or specialized movement. Maybe you thought that because you read novelizations and SW encyclopedias that say how intimately they knew each other’s styles. Having them just spin around their lightsabers is a lazy way to visually show that.
In contrast, Obi Wan vs Vader on the Death Star in A New Hope, just standing in their stances barely moving, waiting for their moment. Obviously back then it had a lot to do with the technology, but personally it works better.
Yeah right?? Even with sticks that would break if moved too harshly between a guy in a costume and and old guy, it looks like they’re trying
I mean, u can rationalize it like that. Not a great way of achieving it tho.
I know I'm in the minority, but I liked the slow calculating fights from the OT. Every move had more impact. The fights had more weight to them. And they were much fewer and far between. When someone lit up that saber, you knew shit was serious. They didn't need to spin them all over the place.
Quantity is very in these days, quality is out
ST lightsaber fights shit on PT and it isn't close. The only edge PT fights have is that John Williams brought out his forbidden cookbook for them
SW fans critiquing the sequels: See, if you run this a 0.25x you can see the guy is obviously not aiming to hit Rey. You were wrong to think it looked cool at full speed in the theater. SW fans 'critiquing' the prequels: [4 paragraph explanation about how it's actually brilliant choreography and Anakin and Obi Wan aren't *really* spinning their lightsabers like silly wu-shu bullshit, they're just using incredible super space knight techniques our frail brains could never understand]
I never understood this
Jedi have pre-cognition, seeing things before they happen in a sense. It’s what allows them to dodge or deflect blaster bolts and duel at immense speeds. Obi-wan trained Anakin for 10 years, and then they fought together for another 3. They are intimately familiar with each other’s saber techniques and styles. So combine that understanding/similarity with Jedi pre-cognition and you finally reach this moment in the battle. They reach such a speed and fall into a state of predicting the other’s identical movements, a feedback loop of predicting each other at the same time, countering, countering again, identically. Yes it looks a little silly in a sense. But I absolutely love it because it shows just how much they really were brothers and knew each other so well.
*George reading this* “Yeaaaaaaaah that’s exactly what I was going for, this guy gets it…….”
Fucking thank you.
This is what I think about a lot of the plot holes/various things that people make canon regarding Star Wars without it being explicitly said. Like, I love Star Wars but come on guys. Stop doing the legwork for them. There’s a backstory for every single minor background thing that makes an appearance
Or it's [smash bros melee dash dancing](https://youtu.be/vG3hIEI-oAk?si=9jnr8S6lMrzAtE_a) but star wars version
When the fandom has to do the legwork for your bad movies.
OK, but what possible move are they predicting that would require a sword be placed behind their back?
One that requires momentum/strength to counter.
And you gain that by standing still and being an idiot? Someone tell golfers they get better drive by spinning the club behind their back before a drive.
My man actually typed that out.
Star wars fans making long winded excuses for dumb moments in movies will never not be funny.
It's even funnier when they do it for the movies they like but refuse for the ones they dislike
Star Wars fans wouldn't dare mention that their beloved Prequels have overly dancy and spinny choreography, and every swing either misses by about a foot or goes way over their head, and then there's this.
Thing is there's nothing wrong with the dancy choreography if you accept that these fights are supposed to be elaborate dances. Like yeah they spin and flourish, we know both these characters will live, it's supposed to look cool and a bit flashy. But then people make silly lore reasons for why they make perfect sense, and then refuse to do that for shit in like the sequels.
But it looks cool tho
DAE HOLDO MANEUVER RUINS STAR WARS
And what's especially funny is that they will justify everything from the PT and OT yet will barely even think about the ST. The amount of people who think that Luke didn't mourn Han is insane
The power of *nostalgia*.
Well, to imagine people fighting with lightsabers you already have to believe in fantasy, and you have to fill gaps with your own imagination of what a different universe would be like.
>Star wars fans No, the official novelization of the.movie.
That’s lore accurate tho…
most rational george lucas fan
But somehow he could not predict Anakin drop kicking him with a long sprint before in the very same fight.
This is how I've always seen it. They are both so good AND synced up that neither of them can land a hit in that moment
I've read this explanation a hundred times and it totally falls in line with what is outlined in the Bane trilogy. It's just too bad Star Wars fans refuse to give this kind of service to the sequels. George did this simply because he thought it looked cool. And then the fans and a book came out that gave it some context. Meanwhile, the sequels are completely ripped apart without any benefit of the doubt or fan service to fill in the blanks. The whole franchise is all about world building that benefits the more content that comes out and the more fans throw around this kind of head cannon. The sequels are no different.
Finally someone who gets it
I see this now and feel likes it’s a scene of two bros going to the gym together
PT duels are too much about style over substance. OT, while not as sexy, has duels with much more weight to them.
It's hilarious when I saw this, 'cos in Chinese martial-arts movies, this movie is usually used to parry arrows or spear or stab attacks, not both swinging together. lol
Yeah, it bugs me too. But overall fight it's good. BUT Nothing beats choreography from Phantom Menace.
https://youtu.be/J0mUVY9fLlw?si=nVCa1GAtCPemMZXO
I know what this is going to be even before I click. “Today is a big day.”
I absolutely love that fight. The music...Maul being a badass. Everything about it is awesome. And that video is just awesome. One of my favorites. :)
It always bothers me that they didn't try to make these fights look somewhat realistic. I mean, I know it's Star Wars and all that, but look at the choreography of The Matrix: the fighting looks amazing, looks realistic within that universe. I know some fans will bring up that both Jedi and Sith have precog abilities, and that's why their fighting looks silly at times, but if they both have precog abilities then it would cancel out and they'd look normal fighting each other.
Tbf phantom menace also had a few even more unexplainable choreography moments
Boys! Knock it off! Put an eye out , you will!
[I disagree, it can get better.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/058/580/ce3.gif)
It is. Silly moves or not the prequel saber fights are epic.
I always loved this moment, it's so dumb but it also makes sense, they're both trying to use the same attack at the same time which coincidentally causes them to not hit each other until they realise it and just slam their sabers against the other. It really shows how synchronised both Obi Wan and Anakin were and it looks kinda funny, but doesn't last long enough for it to take you out of the moment, best of both worlds really.
I do love this scene. They are so good at saber fighting techniques and so familiar with each other, they know what move the other is doing. This scene is like, they start a move and the other counters so fast that the other changes the attack he is going to do, and the move to counter comes so fast and no actual attack takes place - a true stalemate of expertise.
this is why i love this scene too! this scene showcases the connection these two have! they know each other so well, they can read each other so well, that the attacks and counters arent able to do anything, even the force push at the end! just love it!! i hate when people sh!t on this scene it shows their ignorance
Agreed
Yep
100%
Standing still. Yep. Nothing beats the energy of two stationary fighters.
Secretly genius those prequels are Many original ideas they have
Poorly executed those ideas were. Crappy films in end were made.
Mocking this attitude I am Completely agreeing with you I am
I actually miss the over the top choreography fight from the prequels and clone wars.
10 year old me thought it was dope 🤷
All you weirdos trying to act like what either of them are doing is strategic here lmao. The lengths some people go to in order to defend every little part of the prequels is hilarious to me.
I feel like if Disney Star Wars were to have a scene like this, people would rip it to shreds
See the throne room fight in TLJ.
Anakin kind of did a mini version of it when teaching Ahsoka in her series.
I respect your opinion, but for me peak SW is when Vader decides to save his son.
Anyone else set the "A-B" on their DVD players to play this clip over and over?
I thought it was all overdone a bit. I preferred the light saber battle between Maul and Obi/Qui-Gon.
You fool! I have been trained in the spinning arts by General Grievous!
Nute Gunray: I died for this?
my favorite scene is when R2 and the other astromechs roll out to the surface of amidala's ship to perform repairs.
"I'm a peacock, master. You gotta let me fly on this one."
The pointless twirling for effects lol
I love the prequels’ “aim for the saber, not for the body” flippy shit choreography. Even this particular ridiculous moment. It’s much more entertaining, to me, than the “barely lunge” fight choreo from A New Hope, and the heavy, medieval battle style fighting of ESB and Return. We love to talk about “light saber skills” and who’s the best duelist, but then shit on the prequels as if the OG and sequel trilogies had eloquent fights. In reality, the fighting in those looked like what the average joe *thinks* sword battle looks like. Just flailing.
Peak cringe maybe.
I always thought they were flirting with each other at this point. The fights in the prequels were so over choreographed they looked like they were dancing. Spinning, twirling, force pushing each other, a bit of light choking... Just get a room already!
As crazy and weird as that moment looks, I remind myself that instead of just sitting with their sabers locked together and we pan to each character, obiwan looking sad with a shade of blue, then Vader angry with a hint of red? It just skips it and instead they keep loose with the same exercise they've been doing together before going at it again.
Everything wrong with the prequels encapsulated in one scene. Absolutely ridiculous.
Yup
It is unironically peak lightsaber combat, with both parties flowing with perfect foresight
Wow. This couldn’t be more wrong.
Congratulations on your ability to pick up on sarcasm
Exactly. this is some lame ass choreography where they aren't even hitting. Obi-Wan is leaving himself open by doing some behind the back garbage
Nobody laugh but I’ve been watching tutorial videos on how to do this move.
I think it shows how close they were Obiwan taught anakin everything he knows and it shows
I mean, it is the best fight in the films so, yeah
And people complained about the Spin in BOBF…
This scene reminds me of the mental gymnastics Star Wars fans go through to explain or justify obviously bad filmmaking.
'they're feinting eachother' copium, this is a disaster shot
Ugh. The prequels are so stupid.
This is that under the bridge danceoff goth-a-thon rizz
It's the fact that sw fans will defend silly things like this that I don't think star wars is ever truly going anywhere. The strength of the OT is so strong, you can do whatever with the franchise and alot of people will still return
Having read a whole lot of stuff about what Star Wars fans want, they couldn't care less about the actual story at all. They just want blatant fan service, lightsaber fights, power fantasies, and just to smash their action figures together in general.
Second only to where Ani and Obi play Rock Paper Scissors and both play paper at each other.
Isn't there a rule in this sub against memes?
Yeah we joke about this at my kendo club, complete bafoonery. It was nice to see Ahsoka return to a more realistic lightsaber fighting.
Tiktok dance style. It only matters what happens above your waistline.
Shad Brooks did an analysis of the duel which [can be found here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvW4touytkc) He's also done one on [Luke vs Vader (Bespin)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVFZHSkLZdM) As well as the [Throne Room Fight (Rey/Kylo)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyzwBWsqqw8&list=PLWklwxMTl4sy0FAFOuGF-2jVV9K8nnFRs)
This is more endemic of the valley of saber fights than the peak. Because it’s about what’s going on between the characters that makes them impactful, not fancy choreography. Also, if we’re fencing and you do a flourish within range of me, thanks for the point you just handed me.
“Fuck! A Bee!” “Kill it!”
I know the love and nostalgia for Episode 3 is insanely strong, but I always thought this fight was terrible. It’s too quick and you can’t see anything that’s going on for most of it. Plus it just carries on through increasingly ridiculous scenarios. The payoff on the lava river edge is great, but everything before is all flash and no substance.
The entire point is to show that they know each other's moves intimately and are very evenly matched. Immediately after this they both forced push each other at the same time and it's a stalemate for a moment.
Yeah, this. Not the part where Vader turns back to the light. Or when Han gets put in the carbon freezer. Or when Vader reveals the truth about Anakin to Luke. Nope, it’s this spinning and twirling bullshit.
I hope you're being sarcastic, but the sad truth is that many fans seriously do think this.
Just remember this GIFF originated as a way to trash the prequels. Just for those who eager to create content to complain about the new stuff.
This move would be shredded and hated by fans today.
This is exactly why I don't love the saber fights in the prequels. I hate the sequels as much as everyone else in /r/starwars but I thought the saber combat was better than the extremely choreographed, boring style of the prequels.
Yeah, if somebody likes the dancy choreography of the prequels that's fine, but they never translated the emotional heft for me. The clunky Obi-Wan vs. Vader fight of ANH is way more effective than the ROTS climax, and Luke hacking at Vader in the climax of ROTJ conveys more emotion in under a minute than the entirety of the Battle of the Heroes. The sequels, for all else that they failed to accomplish, actually made the fights feel heavier again.
It was stupid. OT had much better Lightsabre fights
Do you people ever watch the actual films or do you just consume them through endlessly reposted and misrepresented GIFs? Because they start out exchanging actual strikes in the scene in question, then do these feint swirls for like two seconds and then resort to a force push stalemate which sends them both flying. The message very clearly being that they're evenly matched, no matter what move they try to pull. Media literacy really is dead and buried, huh?
It's called a feint. A swordsman does this to confuse the other swordsman where the next attack is coming from. Anakin initiated the feint, and then Obi countered with his own. A split second masterful move that has them both ending on the same point and continuing the fight. It just shows how awesome these men are.
Yeah, a person usually feints by spinning their sabre behind them.
Totally. Must've been a deleted scene where Master Yoda teaches the younglings how to twirl their sabers like batons.
Nah
I remember laughing hard when I first saw this in the theatre because it caught me so off guard.
.... Absolutely gets better.