Fight Scene Autopsy: The Last Jedi Throne Room

[mr friendly guy]

Its a bit long at 52 minutes, but its funny. From 40 minutes onwards its pretty bad. We see Rey use force editing powers.

[Rogue 9]

Shad is an idiot. That said, this is all you really need to review that particular fight scene.

[DarthPooky]

Why do you say that Rogue 9? I find Shad quite in his area of expertise and his analysis of the TLJ throne room scene was quite good.

[madd0ct0r]

I'm not sure Shad has an area of expertise. He has a long and overblown youtube channel.

[Formless]

Why do you say that Rogue 9? I find Shad quite in his area of expertise and his analysis of the TLJ throne room scene was quite good.

Because Shad is an idiot? Despite how scholarly he portrays himself, Shad's really just a medieval enthusiast with no real training in history, let alone combat. He does have a background in the construction industry, so his videos on castles are good, but once you move outside that one little niche where he knows what he's talking about it all falls apart. He's basically the kind of guy who mistakenly thinks that researching a subject is the same thing as being educated in the subject, and I don't think I have to explain the problem with that attitude to the people of this board. Everything Shad knows about combat comes from watching other Youtubers like Skallagrim, Matt Easton (Scholagladiatoria), Theign Thrand, Todd Cutler, and The Metatron (aka Raphaello). Probably more, but those are the ones I know for a fact he watches. Most of those people actually practice martial arts, and the rest don't pretend they can comment on fighting at the same level as the ones who do. Shad isn't so stupid as to claim he could beat Skallagrim in a swordfight, but he also isn't smart enough to realize how that undermines his own commentary on the subject.

Shad also doesn't understand why Matt Easton is nicknamed Captain Context by his audience, because Shad often makes the mistake of thinking there is an optimal form for everything regardless of when and where it appears. His love of the kite shield is perhaps the most well known example of this: kite shields suck at forming shield walls because they are so narrow they don't properly interlock, and if you have leg armor you don't need a shield that tall. Its a good shield for early Normal style knights, but it was superseded by heater shields for a reason. His videos on how fantasy creatures should be armed are even better examples, and really the point I stopped watching him altogether. Find one video in that series that considers non-western weapons as possible candidates. Go ahead, try. As I recall, only the one on Merfolk considers them, specifically shamshir style blades which are a staple of western fantasy for some reason. Otherwise, its a Eurocentric view of both history and fantasy through and through, showing both his ignorance and bias. Those same videos also contain one of the most horrible failures to understand animal anatomy I have ever seen, specifically his video on snake people. First he claimed that you can maybe put chainmail armor over the snake's belly and not impact their ability to move, when in reality snake locomotion absolutely requires the belly scales to contact the ground in a certain way that chainmail would interfere with. Second, he takes the ability of some snakes to lunge about as far as they are long to mean snake people should be able to leap twenty feet or some ridiculous number, and at this point anyone who knows about anacondas and boa constrictors are groaning. The ability to lunge doesn't scale up to large snakes at all. He just assumed it did because he is a fucking idiot.

I have no intention of watching this particular video of his. Its a bad fight scene to be sure, but Shad's cringe inducing video on how he thinks lightsabers ought to be used was somehow worse, thus warning me off from any commentary he might do on future Star Wars fight scenes. Lightsabers are nothing like rapiers, they would burn through any conventional guard, so pointing your lightsaber at your opponent would be as foolish as doing so with a stick. The opponent will just target your hands unless you parry, and in binding its better to have two hands on the weapon. Again, its that ignorance of fighting and non-western systems that makes him look foolish.

[Rogue 9]

Why do you say that Rogue 9? I find Shad quite in his area of expertise and his analysis of the TLJ throne room scene was quite good.

All I needed to do was watch the video where he tried to prove that boobplate is a good armor design to know that he's an idiot.

[GuppyShark]

Shad is an idiot. That said, this is all you really need to review that particular fight scene.

Disappeared or... subverted?

[Knife]

The guy can be an idiot and still not be wrong.

[ray245]

Why do you say that Rogue 9? I find Shad quite in his area of expertise and his analysis of the TLJ throne room scene was quite good.

Because Shad is an idiot? Despite how scholarly he portrays himself, Shad's really just a medieval enthusiast with no real training in history, let alone combat. He does have a background in the construction industry, so his videos on castles are good, but once you move outside that one little niche where he knows what he's talking about it all falls apart. He's basically the kind of guy who mistakenly thinks that researching a subject is the same thing as being educated in the subject, and I don't think I have to explain the problem with that attitude to the people of this board. Everything Shad knows about combat comes from watching other Youtubers like Skallagrim, Matt Easton (Scholagladiatoria), Theign Thrand, Todd Cutler, and The Metatron (aka Raphaello). Probably more, but those are the ones I know for a fact he watches. Most of those people actually practice martial arts, and the rest don't pretend they can comment on fighting at the same level as the ones who do. Shad isn't so stupid as to claim he could beat Skallagrim in a swordfight, but he also isn't smart enough to realize how that undermines his own commentary on the subject.

I have no intention of watching this particular video of his. Its a bad fight scene to be sure, but Shad's cringe inducing video on how he thinks lightsabers ought to be used was somehow worse, thus warning me off from any commentary he might do on future Star Wars fight scenes. Lightsabers are nothing like rapiers, they would burn through any conventional guard, so pointing your lightsaber at your opponent would be as foolish as doing so with a stick. The opponent will just target your hands unless you parry, and in binding its better to have two hands on the weapon. Again, its that ignorance of fighting and non-western systems that makes him look foolish.

Didn't ShaD rage about feminism about Star Wars in one of his videos as well? He come across as one of those history-geeks that might know about things in one specific area, and get really really obsessive with certain minor details, but being utterly unable to look at things from a much wider and larger picture.

[Formless]

Didn't ShaD rage about feminism about Star Wars in one of his videos as well? He come across as one of those history-geeks that might know about things in one specific area, and get really really obsessive with certain minor details, but being utterly unable to look at things from a much wider and larger picture.

Oh god, this again? As far as I can tell, unless he released another video I have not seen or watched (because I stopped watching his crap), no, he isn't that kind of misogynistic mouth-breathing twat. He does have at least one video criticizing TLJ as a whole (called "Star Wars is dead and The Last Jedi KILLED IT!" because of course he knows how to clickbait), but as I recall he said nothing about feminism or the general portrayal of women in the film in that video. He even starts the video by saying he liked the film, but only on its own merits, and that he isn't going to watch the final movie of the Saga (this was before the name of episode 9 was announced). His dislike of the film focused on how it makes everyone look like an incompetent boob and assassinated the character of Luke-- you know, the usual complaints made by people who aren't overtly sexist dorks. A stopped clock is right at least twice a day, after all.

That said, if you want to see Shad say some completely retarded things about women, just watch his boob-plate video. Setting aside that the conclusions are dumb and wrong in ways I'm not quite qualified to comment on with authority, the very premise is sexist: trying to justify an image that was born of male gaze and which women who are fans of fantasy everywhere have already deemed disempowering. Or you can also watch his video on barbarians where he tries to justify the "skimpy clothing" aesthetic for both male and female barbarians which is also obviously impractical since no one in real life ever dressed that way, and for good reason. Likewise, not only are his conclusions kinda dumb, he fails to address the elephant in the room-- that men are depicted as hunky and strong while women are depicted as lithe and sexy in this kind of art, and this trope isn't as benign as he thinks.

[Nari]

Didn't ShaD rage about feminism about Star Wars in one of his videos as well? He come across as one of those history-geeks that might know about things in one specific area, and get really really obsessive with certain minor details, but being utterly unable to look at things from a much wider and larger picture.

I don't recall seeing that (but I don't watch a lot of his stuff), but I recall him being peculiarly wound up over Captain Marvel. I had a hard time crediting many of the opinions he stated as being anything but motivated by at least latent misogyny.

[madd0ct0r]

Why do you say that Rogue 9? I find Shad quite in his area of expertise and his analysis of the TLJ throne room scene was quite good.

Because Shad is an idiot? Despite how scholarly he portrays himself, Shad's really just a medieval enthusiast with no real training in history, let alone combat. He does have a background in the construction industry, so his videos on castles are good, but once you move outside that one little niche where he knows what he's talking about it all falls apart. He's basically the kind of guy who mistakenly thinks that researching a subject is the same thing as being educated in the subject, and I don't think I have to explain the problem with that attitude to the people of this board. Everything Shad knows about combat comes from watching other Youtubers like Skallagrim, Matt Easton (Scholagladiatoria), Theign Thrand, Todd Cutler, and The Metatron (aka Raphaello). Probably more, but those are the ones I know for a fact he watches. Most of those people actually practice martial arts, and the rest don't pretend they can comment on fighting at the same level as the ones who do. Shad isn't so stupid as to claim he could beat Skallagrim in a swordfight, but he also isn't smart enough to realize how that undermines his own commentary on the subject.

Shad also doesn't understand why Matt Easton is nicknamed Captain Context by his audience, because Shad often makes the mistake of thinking there is an optimal form for everything regardless of when and where it appears. His love of the kite shield is perhaps the most well known example of this: kite shields suck at forming shield walls because they are so narrow they don't properly interlock, and if you have leg armor you don't need a shield that tall. Its a good shield for early Normal style knights, but it was superseded by heater shields for a reason. His videos on how fantasy creatures should be armed are even better examples, and really the point I stopped watching him altogether. Find one video in that series that considers non-western weapons as possible candidates. Go ahead, try. As I recall, only the one on Merfolk considers them, specifically shamshir style blades which are a staple of western fantasy for some reason. Otherwise, its a Eurocentric view of both history and fantasy through and through, showing both his ignorance and bias.

There's an mild point here which has been nagging me - ALL of the weapons disscussed were invented and used by simirly shaped humans, driven by materials, enemy tactics and context. Presumably the same applies to all fantasy races too.

[ray245]

I don't recall seeing that (but I don't watch a lot of his stuff), but I recall him being peculiarly wound up over Captain Marvel. I had a hard time crediting many of the opinions he stated as being anything but motivated by at least latent misogyny.

Yeah, I remember a suggested video about him commenting on Captain Marvel. There's usually a specific type of male geeks that are so similar to each other in their mindset and etc, that even if they don't explicitly state any sexist comments or views in their videos, I would still assume their criticism towards anything that is perceived as an "intrusion on the male-geekdom" to be something that is motivated by latent misogyny.

[Formless]

One of the problems with Shad, and one of the reasons he doesn't learn, is that his comments section is an echo chamber, and anyone who criticizes him just gets ignored by Shad. You can see this in most videos simply by looking at a difference between the "top comments" and the newest comments. For instance, on his new video about why Jedi should turn their lightsabers off and on during combat, the Top Comments are mostly shit criticizing the Sequel trilogy rather than engaging with the premise of the video. This includes the comment he pinned to the top of the list. The newest comments are full of criticisms of the idea from a number of angles and pointing out when it was done in the movies, mostly the prequels. Not to mention Legends where it was considered a valid, but rare fighting style for various reasons (stress on the technology, philosophical problems with the idea, mastery problems, etc.). There are a couple of top comments criticizing him, but he doesn't engage with any of them.

Here are some of my favorite posts showing why he's a moron, starting with the few I could find in the Top comments:

I've got one: becuase it's a 50/50 gamble with your life.


Also this permission to call this "Han Soloing"

theblasblas turning off the lightsaber is a dumb idea the enemy is pushing against your saber when In clashes turning off the lightsaber would free up the opponent lightsaber right in your skull.

Even a one second gap would be really off putting I think In combat. Imagine not having a sword for a whole second when you are about to bind

The on-and-off argument is essentially the same as the larger question: Why not guns?

Off and then suddenly on... you just described a handgun.

Also lightsabers don't go in and out that quickly. At least they didn't in the original trilogy. They seem to move faster in the sequel.

And now the ones in the Newest section:

FFS.

In the original trilogy, light-sabres were treated as being "heavy", as per George Lucas' direction (the whole light-sabre, not just the handle).

Further, every time a light-sabre was turned on or off, they took time to extend or retract; this nullifies your suggested strategy of turning your light-sabre off during a "bind", because you'd be dead.

Well if you think of how fast paced these light saber fights are turning off your light saber to get around an enemy's defense would be just as hazardous to you if not more than the potential advantage it would bring. Even with a Jedi's precognition and reflexes it would be a risky maneuver because most of the time the Jedi would be fighting another person who's reflexes are just as fast. I would also add that the reason there are so many static blocks in the movies is because it's a movie. The fights are choreographed in a way to make sure that the actors don't continually get wolloped by the sticks they are using. Also those slow in your face blocks add dramatic tension. Also the sequels are just fine and not worthy of disgust.

I would assume it wouldn’t be regularly done because it would remove any threat on the opponent as well as your ability to defend from attacks for the time it would take for the blade to retract and extend, assuming it takes about one second to retract fully and one second to extend fully. With the enhanced reflexes of a Jedi that brief moment where your opponent doesn’t have a lightsaber could be a moment you could move in to strike. Now, the flaw in this is assuming that extending and retracting the lightsaber isn’t nearly instant. If it is then you’d have a point

You use a lightsaber against a guy with a blaster because your lightsaber can deflect blaster bolts. You don't want to get shot while using your Force-hand. As for turning off your lightsaber in a fight, sure it might work, but if you get it just a little bit wrong then you've missed and they have an opening to kill you. It's like saying plate armor is useless because you can stab them in the eyes, yeah sure you can, but good luck getting it to work in an actual fight. The only reason it worked in TLJ was because it was purely offensive. As for trying to justify the Star Wars fight scenes as being 'real fights' in the Star Wars universe, you just can't do it. Use your damn imagination, it's all fiction. You can pick them apart all you want, but it's so much more satisfying to just understand what they were going for from a storytelling perspective.

I had never though about the off/on strategy but, if the reason why they don't do it is because you can't do a quick off/on, why not "fight" with the sabre off to begin with (and turn it on when you believe you'd land a hit)? I don't think "you wouldn't be able to block" is the answer since an "off sabre" using this strategy can't be properly blocked anyway and (if your opponent has his "on") worst case scenario you could turn yours on too for the block instead.

If you turn your lightsaber off, your enemy's lightsaber is still on and now going in your direction. At best it's mutually assured destruction.

If you watch the first ever Star Wars movie when the character named Luke first turns on and off his Father's lightsaber it takes about a second to a second and a half to activate / deactivate. Even the character Darth Maul's lightsaber takes a moment to power on in the opening of big fight scene at the end of the first prequel. People who lack logic lack the ability to make sense

Finally, my own reason for thinking it isn't done more often: turning it off and on is a fine motor movement of the fingers, which you may easily fumble in the middle of a fight. Whereas the traditional sword fighting techniques seen onscreen are gross motor movements you are unlikely to screw up due to stress and can easily practice with a simple stick. Once again, Shad doesn't know how to fight, so his commentary on movie combat is utterly sabotaged by his ignorance.

Honorable mentions that don't have to do with lightsabers but do talk about Shad's stupidity in a more general sense:

Shad: finds another reason to hate on the sequel trilogy.
[Everyone liked that.]

"5 seconds can be an eternity in a sword fight"
Fine print: Especially if Shad does a breakdown on it.

Sword fight: *takes 5 seconds*
Shad: Fight Autopsy - How do you win a duel in 5 seconds? (duration 39:46)
You at 3am: Hmm, good question. Time to find out!

[Korgeta]

Shad is an idiot. That said, this is all you really need to review that particular fight scene.

The editing room, helping films cover up their mistakes.

It's a shame that happened, even watching it i thought 'eh?' Despite how cheap snoke went it was a very good setting and his guards looked intimidating and had everything for a good fight showdown, one would figure fights choreographed should go accordingly given how much control there is in the movement and action and how the camera often follows in detail. It's not like this is a camera failing to note an extra not brushing the floor with a brush in the background despite "brushing" (casino royale)