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IMHO, it boils down to yoda vs. dooku, and maul vs. obi/qui-gon.

i preferred maul's athleticism over yoda's. yoda's seemed less realistic than maul's, IMHO.

unbeataBULL wrote:IMHO, it boils down to yoda vs. dooku, and maul vs. obi/qui-gon.

i preferred maul's athleticism over yoda's. yoda's seemed less realistic than maul's, IMHO.

Not at all. To me, the best choreographed fight in the trilogy is a toss-up between AOTC (the bar scene where Obi-Wan chops off Zam Wessel's hand - short, brutal, to the point), or Empire Strikes Back (Luke vs. Vader). Sure, the prequels have flashier fight scenes, and... oh fuck it, Qui-Gons assault on Maul was excellent. But the rest was ultimately so flawed that it did nothing for me. It was in fact mostly so sloppy that fans can (and have) done better.

Yoda's athleticism, as I've said before, doesn't work for a number of reason. For one, he shouldn't need to use such a style, and for another, it's the opposite of what his body dictates. Precision should be his forté, not reckless expenditure of energy.

Eleas wrote:

unbeataBULL wrote:IMHO, it boils down to yoda vs. dooku, and maul vs. obi/qui-gon.

i preferred maul's athleticism over yoda's. yoda's seemed less realistic than maul's, IMHO.

Not at all. To me, the best choreographed fight in the trilogy is a toss-up between AOTC (the bar scene where Obi-Wan chops off Zam Wessel's hand - short, brutal, to the point), or Empire Strikes Back (Luke vs. Vader). Sure, the prequels have flashier fight scenes, and... oh fuck it, Qui-Gons assault on Maul was excellent. But the rest was ultimately so flawed that it did nothing for me. It was in fact mostly so sloppy that fans can (and have) done better.

Yoda's athleticism, as I've said before, doesn't work for a number of reason. For one, he shouldn't need to use such a style, and for another, it's the opposite of what his body dictates. Precision should be his forté, not reckless expenditure of energy.

Well, since his draw on the Force is so immense, his body doesn't have so much of an impact on his fighting style, I guess.

Actually I found Yoda vs Dooku to just be a complete farce. I mean what we had Yoda leaping and spinning like some hyped up ju-ju bee on crack. The prelude to that fight was better.

For me...It's Luke vs Vader:ESB. Vader schools Skywalker by fighting one handed and go throughs a few styles until he devolves into a more rage aspect when the battle does not go his way immedately.

Some of the older combat wasn't nearly as flashy but then again they at least held onto some aspect of swordfighting better.

I have some ambivalance to RoTS since it's extremely lightsaber heavy and if AoTC and TPm are indicators, extraordinarily acrobatic. Flash is fun, and by no means am I going to expect a pure sword fight from Tar Wars, but I wish for more flash in how the swinging happens, rather then the leaping.

YT300000 wrote: Well, since his draw on the Force is so immense, his body doesn't have so much of an impact on his fighting style, I guess.

I can come up with dozens of bogus explanations of why anything would happen. That still doesn't change the fact that it looks, sounds and feels bogus.

A swordsman weilds his weapon in a way that plays to his strengths. Yoda is small, weak, and old. He's an old master. He should fight as one, not as a young, immature wushu stylist.

The duels in ESB and ROTJ are the ones I most enjoy, not because of the 'flashy moves' or lack thereof, but because they had something called passion in them. The Maul/Obi-wan fight is the only Prequel duel I can immediately think of which had passion in it. Qui-gon looked expressionless in that entire fight (nothing wrong with that, btw). The duels in AOTC were crap, as I've said at other times. I would have liked to have seen Yoda do as Eleas suggested.

that's why i picked maul over yoda: yoda's fight just seemed...dumb. it was far too exaggerated, and not believable at all.

its been a while since i saw ROTJ, but i don't recall the sheer adrenaline that was found in Maul. it made up for the horrible scene with the gungans facing the droids. the droids did little more than march, nothing like the AOTC battles.

Eleas wrote:

YT300000 wrote: Well, since his draw on the Force is so immense, his body doesn't have so much of an impact on his fighting style, I guess.

I can come up with dozens of bogus explanations of why anything would happen. That still doesn't change the fact that it looks, sounds and feels bogus.

A swordsman weilds his weapon in a way that plays to his strengths. Yoda is small, weak, and old. He's an old master. He should fight as one, not as a young, immature wushu stylist.

True. I always like the final duel in RotJ best, its the most powerful with its emotional underpinnings, the music is amazing, the lighting is just eeiry (sp?), the fight is realistic, the whole father and son motif, the Emperor being there...

Basically the whole thing.

the ESB duel is the best one so far, if ROTS lives up to its expectations then it might replace it.

The lightsaber fights in Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy look awesome imho.

Yoda v. Dooku should have had Yoda telekinetically controlling his lightsaber, not physically.

Maul v. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan was similarly flashy, and pretty impressive, but the choreography made no actual sense... the environments, mostly, felt stupidly bogus (why is the power chamber for Theed bigger than Theed itself?) and full of retardly-placed bottomless pits. At least on Bespin there was a pretty reasonable explanation for it.

unbeataBULL wrote:that's why i picked maul over yoda: yoda's fight just seemed...dumb. it was far too exaggerated, and not believable at all.

its been a while since i saw ROTJ, but i don't recall the sheer adrenaline that was found in Maul. it made up for the horrible scene with the gungans facing the droids. the droids did little more than march, nothing like the AOTC battles.

I believe Ray Park assisted in choreography. He's done it before, and that would explain why the saber fighting seemed so much crisper in TPM than in AOTC.

YT300000 wrote:True. I always like the final duel in RotJ best, its the most powerful with its emotional underpinnings, the music is amazing, the lighting is just eeiry (sp?), the fight is realistic, the whole father and son motif, the Emperor being there...

It seems ROTS will have a similar situation, so keep your claws crossed; it might just give us what we want.

Wouldn't it have to be one of the flashier or more complex fights in order to be the best "choreographed?" Zam getting her arm chopped off didn't seem to require all that much choreography.

I'd say it would have to be one of the PT ones. Maybe even Dooku vs. Yoda simply because the guy was sword-fighting with nothing. Harder to do I would imagine.

unbeataBULL wrote:IMHO, it boils down to yoda vs. dooku, and maul vs. obi/qui-gon.

i preferred maul's athleticism over yoda's. yoda's seemed less realistic than maul's, IMHO.

the fan made video by the "Chow" brothers or whatever their names were.

The duels in the OT felt much more real, IMHO. I thought Obi-Wan vs. Vader was the weakest of those (you kind of expected Vader to school Obi-Wan), and it kind of felt like it was largely there to give them something to do while having their conversation.

The Luke vs. Vader fight in ESB stands out in my mind because I remember being startled when Luke jumped out of the carbon freezer. His abilities were so heavily downplayed that I wasn't expecting him to be able to do that.

Luke vs. Vader II is still my favorite, though. Excellent light, great music, and great setup. "You want this, don't you, boy? Go ahead, take it, strike me down." Luke finally does so, and Vader jumps to defend his master.

Ah ha! found it!
Art of the saber.(Right click save as)

By the Ho Brothers

Laird wrote:Ah ha! found it!
Art of the saber.(Right click save as)

By the Ho Brothers

Very nice. My only complaint is they forgot that lightsaber's burn, I was fully expecting to see a small brushfire start up because they were putting their sabers on the ground.

The two-vs-one fight in TPM was the best fight. The three actors and their stuntmen moved with almost Fred Astaire-like grace.

I also like Chronic vs. Cockknocker. Bluntman was not only a lousy duelist, but was confused with Jason Biggs and called "piefucker".

Edited because Elfdart misspelled a one-letter word.

Eleas wrote:
I can come up with dozens of bogus explanations of why anything would happen. That still doesn't change the fact that it looks, sounds and feels bogus.

A swordsman weilds his weapon in a way that plays to his strengths. Yoda is small, weak, and old. He's an old master. He should fight as one, not as a young, immature wushu stylist.

IIRC it's mentioned in the AOTC novelization that yoda would have flattened dooku in one hit if the other hadn't been a force user as well.

Wasn't the Sabre Duel between Yoda and Darth Try Anus all CGI?

Neither. The #1 lightsaber duel in all of Star Wars is the Grevious-whoops-all battle in Clone Wars chapter 20. That outdid even the movie battles.

Sam Or I wrote:Wasn't the Sabre Duel between Yoda and Darth Try Anus all CGI?

No. Yoda was CGI, and Dooku's face was pasted on the stuntman (who had a similar beard and hair). They had a real stunt guy fighting...nothing...in a real hangar.

Impressive job he did there.

Praxis wrote:Neither. The #1 lightsaber duel in all of Star Wars is the Grevious-whoops-all battle in Clone Wars chapter 20. That outdid even the movie battles.

You're kidding. Though that actually IS a highlight of the Clone Wars cartoons, the BEST duel has gotta be a toss up between Anakin vs Ventriss, and Obi-wan vs... that... weird thing that eats him, and he Force-explodes him from the inside. I just liked that for sheer Obi-wan Kickass points.

Laird wrote:Ah ha! found it!
Art of the saber.(Right click save as)

By the Ho Brothers

Wow. I'd never seen that before. That's really good.

Until I see a lightsaber duel in the prequels that isn't rife with a bunch of nonsensical ass-clownery, I'll go with the grittier Luke/Vader match-up in TESB.