Revenge of the Sith Climactic Lightsaber Duel - 5 Years Later

[AT-AT Luvah]

With SpikeTV running the Star Wars films again over the holiday weekend and me with a back sprain, I was watching ROTS (hadn't seen it in a while) and got to thinking about the Anakin-Obi lightsaber duel.

I had been looking forward to that showdown for a very long time, both from a narrative payoff perspective, but also from a pure saber choreography perspective. With Episode I raising the bar for lightsaber battles to unprecedented levels, I was let down by the fights in Episode II. I remember following the lead-up to the Episode 3 climactic saber duel while the film was in development and the breathless quotes from all involved that this would be, 'the mother of all lightsaber battles.'

So did it live up to your expectations? For me, I think the emotional payoff was definitely there, but the saber fighting itself, while definitely fast, was not to the level of Episode I. The setting on Mustafar was phenomenal, but something about the saber fight itself just didn't hit the mark for me. A brutally fast start and then a really nice exchange on the catwalk before going into that control room, but from there it was pretty standard.

I think they're conversation just before the fight begins was fantastic, the brief dialogue on the lava river and then on the banks before Anakin meets his fate were great. I do not have the problem so many seem to have with Obi-Wan's line about 'I have the high ground,' - he was in the midst of battle and yes, it is reasonable to expect to have an advantage if you hold the high ground in a battle. So the emotional aspects of the duel were great to me.

Curious how this fight rates with you in terms of both emotional payoff for the relationship between these two characters as well as just a pure lightsaber battle realized on screen.

Hector

 

[Westies14]

I think it's a string of gimmicks, looks and feels coreographed, holds no sense of danger and contains even less emotion. A big part of that is the trail that leads up to it, of course. I don't believe the "reasons" for it to happen at all, so I can't be invested in the event itself.

 

[Nwerke]

Always wondered why both participants in a duel would do things like simultaneous pirouettes, lifting their swords over their heads and clashing them again on the opposite side - when, if one of them just stood still, he could slice the other one in half while his back was turned.

I dunno; like everything else in the prequels the sabre duels were sound and fury, signifying nothing. I wish I could contribute something productive, Hector, but it's hard to find anything to like. And I did want to.

Okay, okay, um. Yes, for me, there was SOME emotion to it. ROTS was way the best of those three films, and it was Anakin and Obi-Wan, yeah, I felt something. It was a ghost of a shadow of a mirage of what I should have felt, though.

 

[moffeaton]

It was boring and tedious. And ridiculous. Sure, a lava planet, i'll buy into that. But holy crap, really? Balancing on droids and whatnot? Ugh. Like a video game. And Suddenly the "high ground" matters, after like 30 minutes of each one having the high ground, switching off as they level up from area to area?

Also, the sound engineering was once again a Ben Burt wank-a-thon, like the pod race. A guy at work does a great pod race impersonation, consisting of "eee ee eeeeee eeeee" and then "BLUH BLUH BLUH BLUH BLUH BLUH" sounds, mocking Sebulba and Anakin's pods... it's spot on.

The Final Duel™ is like that, with the "woooo eooooo" tension wires on that suspended whatever-it-is thing - it's really distracting. REALLY.

Bummer of a "payoff".

 

[Probe Droid]

It was fun, but not the battle of the century that it sould have been. The Ep. I Qui-Gon-Kenobi-Maul fight is head and shoulders better. It still knocks me out whenever I see it.

 

[ihs]

It was fun, but not the battle of the century that it sould have been. The Ep. I Qui-Gon-Kenobi-Maul fight is head and shoulders better. It still knocks me out whenever I see it.

QFT.

I did enjoy the Obi/Anakin battle initially, being caught up in the moment of seeing the film for the first time. However, the fight doesn't seem to have aged well, as I don't catch myself looking forward to seeing it again - unlike the Maul/Jinn/Kenobi fight in TPM. That one is still :cool .

 

[jcoffman99]

I think had they not intercut it with Yoda and the Emperor it would have had more feeling.

 

[SSgt Burton]

Yeah nothing tops the Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Maul battle for me.


Something about the Obi-Wan/Anakin battle was a big letdown- perhaps the closeness of the camera to the action. It was just too close for me and difficult to keep up with at times (especially when watching it in the theater).

I found it funny how at the end- Obi-Wan defeats Anakin by countering the same move Obi-Wan had used to defeat Maul with.


One thing you can't do is try to compare any of this to any realistic style of swordfighting.

They're Jedi, it's fantasy. They do the same moves simultaneously because they are clairvoyant and anticipating the next move five moves ahead. They have force speed and strength- to a casual viewer a lightsaber battle between two in their prime would probably look like a blur, but the camera keeps up for us.

Kevin

 

[Too Much Garlic]

I keep getting bored by the prequel lightsaber battles. No weight to them. Just fancy swordplay and ballet. BORING.

 

[Solo4114]

Yeah, for all it's flaws as a film, the Maul fight in TPM is top-notch.

The Obi/Anakin fight in ROTS...eh. It's ok. I haven't watched it in a while, but I never quite understood the physics involved in Obi-Wan slicing off THREE of Anakin's limbs simultaneously (but not the 4th?).

The pirouette thing hasn't made sense since it premiered in Empire, though. I never understood why Vader didn't just poke Luke in the back when he pulled that crap. Or hell, slightly lower his blade so as to slice off Luke's arms or whatever.

Visually, I find the ROTS fight to be far less tense, possibly because of the sort of "swashbuckling we're ripping this off of pirate movies" feel as they swing by and take swipes at each other. And there was definitely a video game quality to the escalating "environmental hazards" rather than it feeling sort of natural (IE: TPM, ESB, ANH, etc.). The setting issue (IE: balancing on droids! Now swing on wires! Dont' forget to hit the X button when prompted!) just feels...forced.

Also, the emotional content was just lacking. I've NEVER bought Anakin's reasons for going evil, but I blame that more on the previous two films which kind of backed them into a corner.

 

[DavidS]

ill go ahead and echo whats said above

its NOT a sword fight at all. but alot of that can be explained away by the physics of a lightsaber. since its a laser cutting thingy, you dont have to use the same physical movements and mechanics in a cut since it, theoretically, will cut effortlessly and unidirectionally.
Nowever..... a fight is a fight
and that one really didnt feel like one.
when the arm thingy fell off into the lava stuff. and they were finished dodging the flying cinders....
they just were sorta tapping lightsabers together.... WHY?
just to make the sound effect?

 

[SithLord]

Ya too theatrical, not raw enough, but it still had its moments...one has to keep in mind that the opponents were fairly evenly matched at that point and new each others styles really well, so that they would be matched in moments would make some sense...

 

[Wes R]

I wasn't impressed at all either. I mean its the biggest battle in the storylines of the films and its like meh.

 

[Jeyl]

There are four factors about this duel that just doesn't work for me.

1. There were TOO MANY lightsaber duels in the movie! We had the Dooku duel, the bridge duel with the pole droids, the Grievous duel, the Palpatine/Mace duel all before the Anakin and Obi-Wan duel. I know the films were building up to it, but what a way to wear out an action concept when it comes time to deliver. The duels in the original trilogy were nice because they weren't dueling the whole time, and it was mostly just about that one central duel. But when you have all these lightsaber fights that just go one and on, it does get tiresome.

2. The characters. I would have gotten a lot more into this fight if I had just cared about the characters, but I didn't. I felt no sympathy or any type of connection towards Anakin's character. The film felt like it was slapping me across the face yelling "This is tragic! Isn't it horrible how such an innocent boy could do such things?" but no. He was an a&%hole and always was. This journey to the dark side wasn't him falling from grace because there was no grace in him!

3. The Yoda/Palpatine duel. What's the best way to showcase one of the most hyped up duels in all of Star Wars? By having it constantly interrupted by another, far more interesting but still totally irrelevant duel with Yoda and Palpatine. We got the pointless duel with him in Episode II, but listening to the commentary track for Episode III, it's like they brought it back just because it worked out for the film so well. Not only that, they had it intercut witht he duel that everyone wanted to see. It just broke the tension 10 fold.

4. The music. While I LOVE the Duel of the Fates, I got pretty tired of the overly dramatic and overly choired music that was playing during the Anakin/Obi-Wan duel. Looking back at the original trilogy, I noticed that the first two movies didn't have that much music in the duels. The Vader/Obi-Wan duel only happened before and after the duel was finished and the epic showdown between Luke/Vader in ESB only had music when lightsabers weren't even being used. This works great because music can be a distraction. When you've got nothing but the characters and the sounds of their clashing blades to focus on, it really makes for a tense experience.

So that's my take. This duel was garbage.

 

[Yellowjacket]

It was lame.

 

[foxbatkllr]

Woohoo another soapbox thread on the RPF to complain about the prequels. You just don't see that many of these do you?

Anyway, TPM is better choreographed but I loved the environmental and emotional aspects of the ROTS duel.

 

[AT-AT Luvah]

Just to be clear, I didn't start this thread as a way to complain about the prequels, but to discuss just this one particular duel. Invariably, some will discuss the build-up to the battle which is probably unavoidable since it is meant to 'resolve' all of the tension and conflict building up since Episodes I and II.

I personally enjoyed the ROTS duel in terms of the emotional component. The conversation before the battle, the exchange during the lava surfing, and then Obi-Wan's emotional denouement as he watches Anakin, wrecked on the river bank.

The only thing I would omit would be Anakin's yell of 'I hate you', which I think was a gigantic overstatement that wasn't necessary and comes off as juvenile and pedantic.

The choreography itself had some cool moments, but overall relied too much on the environment and less on the saber skills themselves (except in the first third of the battle).

I was also hoping they would not cut away from the Anakin-Obi battle to anything else, but when you think about it, that would have been incredibly difficult to pull off without the pace suffering. I'm not saying that cutting back and forth to the Emperor and Yoda was wise, but I can see the rationale behind that decision.

 

[JoMamma_Smurf]

My Fav Lightsaber fight is probably in ROTJ. SOOOOO much emotion and raw anger in it. It's realistically sloppy and I can feel the tension in it.

 

[letmebestormy]

It holds a special place in my heart because for the better part of a week I quite literally cleaned every art store/dealer/distributor on the entire west coast out of one single color of red crayola paint for the Mustafar lava flow set. I made at least a hundred calls. I would be shocked if we didn't own the entire west coast's supply. Damn, I wish I could remember the name of the color.

outside of that personal connection...no comment.

 

[Solo4114]

The only thing I would omit would be Anakin's yell of 'I hate you', which I think was a gigantic overstatement that wasn't necessary and comes off as juvenile and pedantic.

For me, that's the problem with Anakin's character as a whole. I get that that's kind of the point, but ultimately I think it's a dramatic choice that fails. I mean, when you look at it, Anakin's actions all derive from one major malfunction: he's still basically the same scared little boy he was when Qui-Gon found him who can't handle loss. He never emotionally matured. The Jedi didn't find him early enough to condition him to be emotionless, and didn't find him late enough to where he'd be sufficiently mature to handle most situations. End result: Anakin essentially is emotionally a 9-year-old with the powers of a demi-god. VERY bad and VERY dangerous combination.

Actually, between how he reacts re: potentially losing Padme, her perceived betrayal, and ultimately the "I hate you!" rant, it's a pretty well-written, well-played sequence IF the goal is to make it abundantly clear that Anakin is a dangerous, superpowered, pissed-off 9-year-old. If that's the goal, they hit it out of the park all around. It's not necessarily what I find an ENTERTAINING goal, but hey, mission accomplished with flying colors if that's what they set out to do, and I mean that sincerely.

I was also hoping they would not cut away from the Anakin-Obi battle to anything else, but when you think about it, that would have been incredibly difficult to pull off without the pace suffering. I'm not saying that cutting back and forth to the Emperor and Yoda was wise, but I can see the rationale behind that decision.

On this point, I echo the previous comments re: the unnecessary nature of the Yoda/Emperor fight. I think they could've simply intercut Yoda blasting off and perhaps showing him on approach to Dagobah, during the "final sequences" bit, rather than having an ultimately pointless duel with the Emperor. I do think it robs the Anakin/Obi-Wan duel of much potential.

Oh, and whoever mentioned the music, EXCELLENT point. The ESB and ANH fights have real tension because you aren't being given laugh-track/musical cues, until the real payoff hits.

My Fav Lightsaber fight is probably in ROTJ. SOOOOO much emotion and raw anger in it. It's realistically sloppy and I can feel the tension in it.

Also a good point. LOTS of emotion in that one, and again, the real emotional music hits (as I recall) only when Luke totally loses it instead of blasting throughout.