Samuel L. Jackson Thinks Force Awakens Actors Need "Lightsaber Fight School"

[Loonyyy]

While there's no denying that the fight choreography from the [prequels] was impressive, it also frequently looked like something practiced. The fights were too dance-like, often lasted way too long and just didn't feel like the people involved were actually trying to kill each other. The fights in The Force Awakens were perhaps less dynamic but were, in my opinion, more visceral and closer in tone to the ones featured in the original trilogy.

This is pretty much exactly what I said after I saw the movie. The Force Awakens lightsaber fights were my favorite so far. More visceral and fun to watch than the original trilogy, but not over-choreographed and lacking in dramatic intensity like the in the prequel trilogy. And it's a small thing, but the idea that one could inflict more minor wounds--just like in a real-life swordfight--was a great touch, whereas fights in Episode I-VI it was always clash-clash-clash for a looooong time followed by dismemberment or death.

Thats why I liked the fight between Dooku and Obi Wan in Episode 2, it was over quickly and Dooku ended it by inflicting relatively minor glancing wounds on Kenobi.

There's a line in the novelisation of Ep II that lays out that most Jedi are trained to fight people with blasters, but that Dooku is specifically trained to fight as a swordsman which is why he beats Kenobi.

That makes a lot of sense.

By the time of the prequels, the Sith were gone for so long that the Jedi focused their training on countering blaster fire, closing distances, and attacking to destroy/kill without resistance once distance was closed. I mean, if there's no Sith around, the only other lightsaber wielders are Jedi and they're not going to fight each other to the death.

On the other hand, Sidious/Palpatine, Maul, and Tyranous/Dooku knew that they would have to face and defeat Jedi to succeed, so they trained accordingly.

Interesting.

Yeah, in the EU they try to make this whole martial arts thing out of it, with different styles and forms of Lightsaber combat. Dooku is a master of "Form II", which is basically fencing, which is why the modified grip is meant to be useful. While modern Jedi are usually trained in Form III IIRC, and Form III is about spinning and sweeping blade movements for deflecting blasterfire.

It gets really dumb when they get into Form VII/Vaapad, which is supposedly what Mace Windu specialises in, which is meant to be ultra aggressive, chaotic and involve flirting with the dark side, which probably sounded better in someone's head.

 

[Loonyyy]

Well, I guess we have a different idea of effort - in my book, everyone who goes though that many flips and parries and what not is putting quite a bit of effort in order to defeat their opponent.

Yeah, and it still does. What I was pointing out, is that even if we go with "REALISM" line, that argument doesn't work.

That's the problem though. They go through all those flips and parries, indicating that the flips and parries are no effort for them. The fights are marathon. Maybe we don't want realism, but mimicking a real fight often can add an edge to things, and people just don't stay that energetic for that long, and if you can stay that mobile throughout, then why does anyone's defense ever get overwhelmed? Even if the blade doesn't have weight, the swing does(And we're talking weight of a swing, which is the force of the swing, not the mass anyway, which is actually what the blade lacks), and if you block enough hand to hand strikes, you'll feel the struggle to keep their hands away. The saber tangles actually look like two people trying to throw down.

I like the acrobatic stuff, don't get me wrong, I actually enjoyed that aspect of the prequels, and I liked how it progressed into videogames, but there's a lot to be said for the different fighting style. It looks like a struggle, a knock down drag-out fight. Ren looks like he's trying to murder someone. I had a lot of bad things to say about Ren, but his presence in the fights was not one of them. The fights looked vicious.

 

[RealRT]

What duels? I didnt see any duels in the prequels.

Consult your local ophtalmologist about that.

My point was that all of the battles are so flashy and over choreographed that they look more like dancing than fighting. Everyone moves like they know exactly what their opponent will do at any moment. Probably because they do.

When you have people whose quick reactions WERE explained by seeing twenty seconds into the future, that's not an unfair explanation.

Well, I guess we have a different idea of effort - in my book, everyone who goes though that many flips and parries and what not is putting quite a bit of effort in order to defeat their opponent.

Yeah, and it still does. What I was pointing out, is that even if we go with "REALISM" line, that argument doesn't work.

That's the problem though. They go through all those flips and parries, indicating that the flips and parries are no effort for them. The fights are marathon. Maybe we don't want realism, but mimicking a real fight often can add an edge to things, and people just don't stay that energetic for that long, and if you can stay that mobile throughout, then why does anyone's defense ever get overwhelmed? Even if the blade doesn't have weight, the swing does(And we're talking weight of a swing, which is the force of the swing, not the mass anyway, which is actually what the blade lacks), and if you block enough hand to hand strikes, you'll feel the struggle to keep their hands away. The saber tangles actually look like two people trying to throw down.

I like the acrobatic stuff, don't get me wrong, I actually enjoyed that aspect of the prequels, and I liked how it progressed into videogames, but there's a lot to be said for the different fighting style. It looks like a struggle, a knock down drag-out fight. Ren looks like he's trying to murder someone. I had a lot of bad things to say about Ren, but his presence in the fights was not one of them. The fights looked vicious.

Yeah, people typically don't stay that energetic for that long, but then again, they also don't jump three meters up or turn on super speed to run past some droidekas, etc.

Ren looks like he's going to murder someone whenever he takes off his mask, that's not that big of an achievement.

 

[ServebotFrank]

I actually really liked the fights and I hoped they stay that way. One complaint I had about the prequels was that the Jedi seemed to be almost invincible unless fighting other force users which sapped a lot of the tension from the fights.

I think it would be better if one Jedi was basically the strength of an entire platoon, rather than an entire fucking army. Like they should be really difficult to take down, sure, but not impossible. It would also be cool if we started seeing squads, in the next film, of non-force sensitive Storm Troopers trained specifically to fight force users. It would help a lot more in increasing the tension during fights if we ran into people who could counter the force with clever tactics.

 

[elvor0]

The thing I found most, shall we say annoying about the fights, is that when they swung the lightsabers, it looked like a broadsword. As in, it had a heavy heft to it. Lightsabers, lorewise, were so light and so unlike other melee weapons, that they took so long to master. I think they had it backwards in the movie, the swings were slow where they should have been fast. If they wanted to show inexperience they could have swung the blade too far, leaving themselves open.

TLDR: The swings should have been much faster for the weight of the weapon, they looked too slow.

Lorewise, in the original movies, they were supposed to be heavy.


Skip to 3:30, and you'll see Mark Hamil and George Lucas talking about how they were supposed to be wielded like massive 2 handed swords.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Say what you will about the prequels, but at least the light-saber fights in them were AMAZING to watch. The fight between Obi-Wan and Anakin was amazing to watch, and while I can understand not wanting to have a fight where Fin and Rey were on that skill level, this fight was just awful, slow, and boring to watch.

You'd concede the underlined is actually just completely subjective, ergo kinda pointless to phrase in that way, right?

They were flashy, sure, but I was personally not 'amazed'. Whereas I have the opposite reaction to TFA's; I think that film gave the entire series its soul back, and those saber clashes felt emotional and, at times, desperate. Cause and consequence - as opposed to waving glowsticks around.

 

[Valkrex]

Say what you will about the prequels, but at least the light-saber fights in them were AMAZING to watch. The fight between Obi-Wan and Anakin was amazing to watch, and while I can understand not wanting to have a fight where Fin and Rey were on that skill level, this fight was just awful, slow, and boring to watch.

You'd concede the underlined is actually just completely subjective, ergo kinda pointless to phrase in that way, right?

They were flashy, sure, but I was personally not 'amazed'. Whereas I have the opposite reaction to TFA's; I think that film gave the entire series its soul back, and those saber clashes felt emotional and, at times, desperate. Cause and consequence - as opposed to waving glowsticks around.

Yea... this is a subjective opinion on a subjective piece. Just because you disagree with me doesn't mean that I think your wrong or your opinion is invalid.

 

[SmugFrog]

The prequels had exciting fights the first time you see them - then you go back and watch it and... not so much.

What really pushed it over to top for me in how bad it was is this video. You can clearly see how hard they were trying to miss each other.


Specifically at 1:47, just... wtf? It's really dancing. That awkward spin and "I'd better take my time so I don't turn too soon and hit you."

The Force Awakens made it look like those characters were out to kill each other. It's a shame that Jackson doesn't appear to be a big fan of the movie. It kind of makes me wonder if there's a bitterness because he wanted to be in these and someone refused him. I swear I read an article a while back where he had claimed or hinted that his character was not actually killed off.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I like the sword play, it looked more realistic. What with Kylo Ren having a cracked crystal, and difficulty with the force, it makes sense, that his blade acts like an unwieldy double handed sword, or axe.