Have Lightsaber Duels Dropped in Quality?

[Winter]

Lightsaber duels are weird in that every major Trilogy has its defenders and detractors. The Original Trilogy Duels are either better because they have more emotional impact or a poorly choreographed fights that lack any real sense of tension. The Prequels Trilogy is either greatly choreographed set pieces with interesting thematic ideas or an over choreographed that also lacks tension because how no one seems to get tired. And The Disney Sequel Trilogy is either the best choreographed fights in the series with deep personal investment with the characters or the worst choreographed fights with the most shallow characters in the series.

For me personally, I like the choreography of the Prequels but like the emotional investment of the Original and felt that both got better in both emotion and choreography as both Trilogies went on. My personal favorite duels in the series are Anakin vs. Vader in Revenge of the Sith as that is what the entire Trilogy is building up to and I felt it was a satisfying payoff and Luke vs. Vader in The Empire Strikes Back duel to it being a major turning point for both both Luke and Vader's characters and the series as a whole. The other duels are either good but lack the impact of these two fights.

I love Duel of the Fates' fight in the Phantom Menace and Obi-Wan vs. Vader in A New Hope is also interesting as a re-watch when you have more context with the Prequels but on its own I feel it's the weakest in terms of choreography. Return of the Jedi is more about the emotion with some rather obvious mistakes but the payoff of Luke refusing to fight his father is still makes it one of the most engaging scenes in the series.

Anakin, Obi-Wan and Yoda vs. Dooku is fun but hard to take seriously and 99% of the fights scenes in Revenge of the Sith are lightsaber duels so I'm not going to rate all of them but will say that I felt some were good, some were silly and others were solid and all pale in comparison to the climatic duel of the Trilogy.

And then we have the TDST duels and I'm going to be honest I felt these are rather weak. I felt the choreography is weak with the characters treating the Lightsabers more like bats then swords and, IMO, with the exception of Rey and Finn's fight fight with Kylo none of the duels have any reason to exist other then to have an action scene. The duels in The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker serve no real purpose and could be cut as they have no plot relevance and even less character relevance. I know that many feel that the duel in TLJ is one of the series bests but I'm sorry, I don't see it as it has no impact on anything and the duel in ROS is even worse because of how the climax of said duel is rendered pointless by the film not killing off Kylo and Ben being completely irrelevant in the climax thus making the duel just a flashy set piece with some of the series weakest choreography.

Even the duel between Ahsoka and Magistrate was rather in terms of choreography but do at least like how there is some actual relevance to it in terms of plot if not character. Honestly, I think the best duels of the series have been the animated ones like in Rebels, the 7th season of The Clone Wars the game Fallen Order.

I get what the films are trying to do, recreate the style of the Original Trilogy duels but those duels were done at the start of the series and, again, I feel the choreography of TOT was the weak part of that Trilogy while the Prequels had, IMO, much better choreography and that the series really should have tried to combine what worked about one instead of just trying to solely to recreate a style which is being done to just call back to the original.

Something like... This-


youtu.be/mClOxgyWLs8

[Draco Dracul]

The best lightsaber duel in all the films was the one at the end of TFA.

[Winter]

The best lightsaber duel in all the films was the one at the end of TFA.

Hm, why?

[McAvoy]

The best lightsaber duel in all the films was the one at the end of TFA.

How so? I mean it's not bad. Not really a duel or in this case, duels.

The Duel in Revenge of the Sith does have to be the best of the movies to me. Kenobi was intentionally giving ground to the superior Anakin. The duel started out as a great polished lightsaber fight that was starting to develop into no holds barred fight.

I think the most emotional one was the second half of the Return of the Jedi duel. One where the previously calm and collected Luke who by that point wasnt going his full out. Then get gets angry and while pretty bad in terms of being cherographed, it felt emotional. Watching Vader being pushed back and Luke on the full on attack overpowering Vader. Then he stops once Vader was disarmed.

The duel in Empire I actually love because it's well filmed. Vader is testing Luke the entire time. It also gives off a little horror vibe to it too.

The fight in ANH is obviously the worse one especially when we see others later on. Which is why I liked the fan made reimagining of it, even if the style of the whole thing doesn't match up at all with the rest of the film.

[Draco Dracul]

The best lightsaber duel in all the films was the one at the end of TFA.

How so? I mean it's not bad. Not really a duel or in this case, duels.

The Duel in Revenge of the Sith does have to be the best of the movies to me. Kenobi was intentionally giving ground to the superior Anakin. The duel started out as a great polished lightsaber fight that was starting to develop into no holds barred fight.

I think the most emotional one was the second half of the Return of the Jedi duel. One where the previously calm and collected Luke who by that point wasnt going his full out. Then get gets angry and while pretty bad in terms of being cherographed, it felt emotional. Watching Vader being pushed back and Luke on the full on attack overpowering Vader. Then he stops once Vader was disarmed.

The duel in Empire I actually love because it's well filmed. Vader is testing Luke the entire time. It also gives off a little horror vibe to it too.

The fight in ANH is obviously the worse one especially when we see others later on. Which is why I liked the fan made reimagining of it, even if the style of the whole thing doesn't match up at all with the rest of the film.

The duel of fates isn't a favorite of mine for a few reason.

One is that in the actual film it's cut up by the other parts of the climax (the throne room fight in TLJ suffers from the same issue). Admittedly thier are plenty of places where you can find a supercut of the Duel of the Fates so you don't have to watch it as shown in theaters.

Another is that Darth Maul isn't a character.

Finally I prefer my lightsaber battles to be samurai films rather than wuxia.

I get that other people love it and it is easily the best part of TPM, but it's not my favorite.

[Nealithi]

I always liked this one myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ha9pzITLRk

[McAvoy]

The best lightsaber duel in all the films was the one at the end of TFA.

How so? I mean it's not bad. Not really a duel or in this case, duels.

The Duel in Revenge of the Sith does have to be the best of the movies to me. Kenobi was intentionally giving ground to the superior Anakin. The duel started out as a great polished lightsaber fight that was starting to develop into no holds barred fight.

I think the most emotional one was the second half of the Return of the Jedi duel. One where the previously calm and collected Luke who by that point wasnt going his full out. Then get gets angry and while pretty bad in terms of being cherographed, it felt emotional. Watching Vader being pushed back and Luke on the full on attack overpowering Vader. Then he stops once Vader was disarmed.

The duel in Empire I actually love because it's well filmed. Vader is testing Luke the entire time. It also gives off a little horror vibe to it too.

The fight in ANH is obviously the worse one especially when we see others later on. Which is why I liked the fan made reimagining of it, even if the style of the whole thing doesn't match up at all with the rest of the film.

The duel of fates isn't a favorite of mine for a few reason.

One is that in the actual film it's cut up by the other parts of the climax (the throne room fight in TLJ suffers from the same issue). Admittedly thier are plenty of places where you can find a supercut of the Duel of the Fates so you don't have to watch it as shown in theaters.

Another is that Darth Maul isn't a character.

Finally I prefer my lightsaber battles to be samurai films rather than wuxia.

I get that other people love it and it is easily the best part of TPM, but it's not my favorite.

I think the Duel of the Fates fight is typically placed higher on people's lists due to it being the best part of the film and the music itself.

It does feel somewhat pointless. There wasnt really a fight for the fate of something. Anakin? No mention that was the goal of Maul. Naboo? Maul wasn't there for that planet. Maul was there pretty much to kill Jedi. Not much else in his motivations.

It's later on sort of implied that it was to get rid of Qui-Gon Jinn since it was felt he was the only one that could train Anakin the most effectively.

[Makeshift Python]

Might as well rank them:

1. TESB: Luke vs Vader. - I like the growing escalation. Luke seems to do well, but as time goes it's clear he's way in over his head.

2. ROTJ: Luke vs Vader rematch - Luke throwing his saber and declaring himself a Jedi was boss.

3. TLJ: Kylo Ren & Rey vs Guardsmen - May be the closet thing to Rey and Kylo Ren having sex.

4. TFA: Rey & Finn vs Kylo Ren - I like how raw it feels. A wounded warrior vs two who would normally be outmatched.

5. ANH: Obi-Wan vs Vader - Fight ain't great, but the emotion is very powerful.

6. TROS: Rey vs Kylo Ren - Really just for the moment Rey shows compassion for Ben and heals him (and his soul).

7. TPM: Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan vs Darth Maul - The most impressive saber fight, but there's no emotion there until the last quarter with an enraged Obi-Wan.

8. AOTC: Obi-Wan, Anakin, Yoda vs Count Dooku - It's fine until Yoda comes along. A saber fight feels too beneath Yoda (same for Palpatine in ROTS).

9. ROTS: Obi-Wan vs Darth Vader - Could have been emotionally strong, but it's undone by Lucas going way over the top with the river of lava goofiness. And inter-cutting with a fight that never should have been: Yoda vs Palpatine.

[Winter]

3. TLJ: Kylo Ren & Rey vs Guardsmen - May be the closet thing to Rey and Kylo Ren having sex.

6. TROS: Rey vs Kylo Ren - Really just for the moment Rey shows compassion for Ben and heals him (and his soul).

[Makeshift Python]

I would have included Han’s appearance, but Rey was already gone by that point so it doesn’t really count as the tag end of a saber fight.