Spoilers below.
So, at the end of the latest Star Wars movie, Rogue One, we get a truly memorable moment that has, perhaps gone down as audience's favourite scene of the entire film; Darth Vader, strolling down a hallway while slaughtering every Rebel in his path. It's a gripping and thoroughly enjoyable moment, reminding everybody watching why this guy has gone down as one of the truly great villains of cinema. He says nothing, yet we know just from looking that he's an unstoppable force of destruction, with the good guys unable to do anything to halt his advance.
And yet, as I watched it, I couldn't help but feel something odd. The Prequels, while certainly flawed, nevertheless had spectacular fight scenes and choreography, creating fighters that appeared to be of a calibre that simply could not be matched. The fluidity of their movements, the style of their lightsaber duels, the way they flipped and kicked and jumped, just made the fights of the original trilogy looks like childsplay by comparison.
And yet, here was Vader, fighting in a manner that was far more restrained and basic than those of the Prequel-era, yet he, for whatever reason, seemed to come across as not only more intimidating, but also like an overall better fighter than those who came before. This is what struck me as odd because those who fought and duelled in the Prequels were clearly made to appear as though they had skill that far outmatched those of the OT, and in a lot of ways, they did. But even so, there was just something about the more simple way Vader fought in Rogue One that just seemed to overshadow those more choreographed fights.
Do you agree? Disagree? Or perhaps share some other viewpoint I had not considered?
So, at the end of the latest Star Wars movie, Rogue One, we get a truly memorable moment that has, perhaps gone down as audience's favourite scene of the entire film; Darth Vader, strolling down a hallway while slaughtering every Rebel in his path. It's a gripping and thoroughly enjoyable moment, reminding everybody watching why this guy has gone down as one of the truly great villains of cinema. He says nothing, yet we know just from looking that he's an unstoppable force of destruction, with the good guys unable to do anything to halt his advance.
And yet, as I watched it, I couldn't help but feel something odd. The Prequels, while certainly flawed, nevertheless had spectacular fight scenes and choreography, creating fighters that appeared to be of a calibre that simply could not be matched. The fluidity of their movements, the style of their lightsaber duels, the way they flipped and kicked and jumped, just made the fights of the original trilogy looks like childsplay by comparison.
And yet, here was Vader, fighting in a manner that was far more restrained and basic than those of the Prequel-era, yet he, for whatever reason, seemed to come across as not only more intimidating, but also like an overall better fighter than those who came before. This is what struck me as odd because those who fought and duelled in the Prequels were clearly made to appear as though they had skill that far outmatched those of the OT, and in a lot of ways, they did. But even so, there was just something about the more simple way Vader fought in Rogue One that just seemed to overshadow those more choreographed fights.
Do you agree? Disagree? Or perhaps share some other viewpoint I had not considered?