Lightsabers, Camera, Action!
Dec. 2nd, 2016 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrilAmong the many spectacular creations of the Star Wars universe, lightsabers might just be the coolest. They showcase a near-perfect fusion of fantasy and science fiction aesthetics: classical sword-fighting turned futuristic. The concept is awesome, and the execution of it even better. The visual effects are so convincing we forget that it's really just a prop with the glowing look added in post-production. The sound design is pretty much flawless. And the fight choreography is, of course, spectacular.
Just for fun (that's why I spend hours writing posts like this, for fun) I wanted to explore what makes the lightsaber fights in Star Wars so entertaining, and then discuss each one in these terms. This may lead to a passing mention of why the fight in Disney Space Movie didn't work for me at all, in any way, though I promise I won't dwell on it. Mostly, I'm going to rank the fights in each of the six films -- not as better or worse than each other, but as a series of escalating encounters over the course of each trilogy that culminate in two duels containing the maximum of adrenaline and emotional intensity.
There are two main components of a lightsaber duel, I believe, that allow it to effectively entertain the audience as well as develop the storyline: the emotional context, and the technical prowess of the fight. Each duel (and though that term literally refers to two fighters, let's just assume it includes fights with any number of participants) contains these two elements to a greater or lesser degree. The technical prowess -- what you might call the "wow factor" if you like soundbites -- can be further divided into the relative skill of the fighters and the setting of the fight. So let's look at each encounter with these factors in mind.
First off, the fight in the Mos Eisley cantina. This is the first time we see Obi-Wan or anyone use a lightsaber. It's a very brief, blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, filmed in such a way that you can't really tell what happened until you see the severed arm on the floor. The emotional factor is low -- Obi-Wan has no connection with these ruffians other than the fact that they're threatening Luke -- but it does give us an impressive first glimpse of a lightsaber's capabilities, and by extension a Jedi's. The locale is a seedy den, not particularly awe-inspiring though certainly alien. It provides a solid baseline for what to expect from this strange weapon, and everything afterwards will be building up from it.
Here's a much more intense emotional factor. Even without any of the other movies for context, we would know that this is a fateful encounter. Vader is the student who turned against his teacher; Obi-Wan is the serene exile who remains calm against every taunt and insult. The technical aspects? Not quite as impressive. Sure, there's something very evocative about stark interior of the Death Star, but in terms of the actual fighting, it's hardly super-charged. They're old; they're wary. The dialogue is just as important as the blows they exchange.
That's not to say I'm disparaging this fight! It serves exactly the purpose it needs to -- presenting the tragic conclusion to Anakin/Vader and Obi-Wan's partnership, and the sacrifice Obi-Wan is willing to make so the others can escape. It is poignant and heart-rending, more of a quiet elegy than a wild rush. It also sets up the intriguing notion of Obi-Wan becoming "more powerful than you could possibly imagine" which will play out in the remainder of the trilogy.
This is the fight that's not really a fight at all, but some kind of trance-like test for Luke. Which he fails. In terms of technical wonder, it's brief and rather one-sided -- Luke is beheading not-Vader after just a few parries. The sequence is filmed in slow motion to emphasize the surreality of what's happening, I believe the only instance of slow-mo in the entire saga. (Thank goodness, as far as I'm concerned -- slow-motion overuse is one of my cinematic pet peeves.) Emotionally, we are left with a sense of unease about Luke's progress. What does it mean when he sees his own face in Vader's mask? We are forced to recognize that being a Jedi is about more than just fighting skills.
Which is a perfect set-up for the culminating duel of Episode V. This one has everything the Obi-Wan/Vader duel had in Episode IV, amped up to the next level. The emotional stakes are higher than ever -- Luke is looking for revenge both for Ben and his father; he's also seeking to prove himself and test out the skills he's been honing while training with Yoda. Vader, of course, has his own agenda of luring Luke to the Dark Side.
Here's the thing -- Luke doesn't stand a chance, fighting-wise. He seems to be holding his own fairly well early in the duel, while they're still in the carbon-freezing chamber. He fends off Vader's attacks; he jumps out of the pit before Vader can freeze him; he even uses some telekinesis to supplement his saberwork, which we'd never seen in a duel before.
But then in the next phase of the fight, Vader unleashes the full extent of his powers, and we realize that he's only been toying with Luke before now. He was assessing his son's abilities, testing him...but now that he knows what level Luke is at, he switches tactics and begins a brutal assault. Throwing objects at him, pummeling him from every direction, taunting him. All with the aim of bringing him to the Dark Side. This is where emotional and technical prowess come together to spectacular effect. The setting is a visual feast of shadowy chambers, eerie lighting, stark contrasts, dizzying catwalks. Vader is a consummate fighter, and Luke's defenses become more and more enfeebled. There is physical peril -- Luke loses his hand and hangs over a terrifying precipice -- and emotional anguish -- Vader reveals the truth about his father and offers the startling prospect of ruling the galaxy together. "It is the only way," he claims, but at the moment of climax, Luke makes a different choice and jumps into the abyss. It couldn't get much more intense than this...and yet it does.
But first, we get this exciting reveal of how Luke's powers have progressed since the last film. His appearance at the start of Episode VI is shrouded in mystery -- we're left wondering what is plan is, whether he's come to terms with the events of the last film, and whether his dark hooded robe is meant to hint at his potential succumbing to the Dark Side.
And then he charges into battle with a brand new lightsaber, handily taking on a whole barge full of Jabba's goons. For the time being, we can set our questions and worries aside, because wow! We've never seen a Jedi's powers like this before. Ah, lightsabers can deflect blaster bolts -- that settles the question of how they'd be any use against ranged weapons. And Luke's overall physical prowess is considerable as he leaps from one foe to the next. It seems, as the title indicates, that the Jedi really has returned. Most of the important emotional context is in relation to Luke's character development -- there's not a lot of depth to Jabba's goons -- but we do see the value of friends helping each other, a humbling and deeply-altering experience for former loner Han Solo. In the context of what's coming, this is a rather lighthearted treat, a set-up for more serious stuff.
This is it. Everything in Luke and Vader's storylines has been leading up to this. From the moment Luke first asked how his father died, to his decision to surrender to Imperials on Endor in order to protect his friends, this final confrontation was looming. And it does not disappoint. The setting -- the Emperor's throne room is visually striking, as harsh and eerie as the underside of Cloud City, with the added view of the perilous battle between the Rebel and Imperial starfleets. The fighting prowess -- Luke is no longer a rash, overconfident novice, and he and his father match blow for blow.
Then there's the emotional heft. The fight is not for anyone's life, but for Luke and Anakin's souls. Luke senses good in his father and pleads with him to turn back. Vader resists, forcing him to fight. And the Emperor watches and cackles, certain that he will win either way. Vader finds Luke's greatest vulnerability -- taunting that he will try to turn Leia, his sister, to the Dark Side. Luke briefly succumbs to anger and hate, lashing out until he has done the same to Vader as he did to him. Then he stares at the stub of his mechanical arm -- he hardly even seems to hear the Emperor's words. The lightsaber duel has ended, but the true battle continues to play out with startling twists and turns. Luke refuses to kill his father. He throws away his weapon. The Emperor attacks him. And at last, Anakin's good self reemerges as he saves his son's life, sacrificing his own in the process. We have gone through every height and depth, from the terrifying chorus during Luke's rampage to the elegiac rendition of the Imperial March that marks Anakin's death. This is everything that Episode VI's climactic lightsaber duel needed to be.
Then with Episode I, Lucas begins to portray a galaxy where, instead of a lone exile training a headstrong youth, Jedi Knights are vast in number and command almost universal respect. We see why almost immediately -- Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan make quick work of hordes of battle droids, hardly blinking an eye. Their saberwork is astounding; they also draw upon multiple supernatural abilities including uncanny swiftness. No wonder the shifty Federation leaders were so unwilling to be in the same room as two Jedi. The emotional context is pretty lightweight to start with. We as audience members are naturally excited to see the Jedi in their days of glory, but the Jedi themselves have little emotional investment in fighting a mindless army of droids. The same is true throughout the initial sequence on Naboo, when they're rescuing the queen and fighting their way through the hanger to escape on her ship. Looks cool, very impressive, but more important stuff is yet to come.
The first encounter with Darth Maul is brief but very intense. From the moment Maul nearly runs little Ani over to the rescue that leaves Qui-Gon exhausted but safe on the floor of the starship, we hardly have a chance to breathe. It is clearly a tease of when they'll meet again and engage in a more sustained battle with far-reaching consequences. But this taste is important. We see that Sidious just might be right about Maul's abilities. He left Qui-Gon utterly winded and troubled on top of that. He caught him by surprise just like the Sith's return caught the Jedi Order by surprise. You could speculate about all sorts of foreshadowing and symbolism in this scene, from Anakin being endangered by a Sith's attack to his fateful meeting with Obi-Wan coming in its wake. However, its primary purpose was to set up the climatic duel coming up in the film's four-part final battle.
And here it is. This is pretty close to maximum adrenaline. All the cool factors are there -- the awesome setting, the incredibly choreographed fighting, two noble Jedi against a foe whose appearance creates a visceral evocation of evil, the music that has become the most recognized theme of the prequels.
Yet the emotional context is actual rather low in comparison to the other films' climatic duels -- a good thing, because you have to start lower to build things up. Sure, the existence of the Sith stands in opposition to everything the Jedi have believed for a thousand years, but it's more of an abstract thing than deeply personal stakes. No betrayal of old friendships or a burning need for vengeance. Maul wants revenge against the Jedi generally, but probably not Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan in particular. It's all symbolic of the overall battle between good and evil. The most significant emotional blow, of course, comes when Qui-Gon is killed. But its import won't fully play out until we have the context of later events in Episode II and III, realizing how Qui-Gon's death influenced the course of Anakin's fate. In the moment, it's simply sad, and we mourn with Obi-Wan.
There's plenty of saberwork throughout the course of Episode II, including Anakin and Obi-Wan's confrontation with Zam Wesell and Anakin's grief-driven rampage against the Sandpeople, but I'm not going to give all of them detailed explanation. Much of it serves a similar purpose to the ongoing use of lightsabers in Episode I -- showcasing the skills of trained Jedi Knights in the old Republic, while also revealing that Anakin has much of the same recklessness and impatience that his son will have. His attack on the Tusken Raiders, while deeply important for his character arc, mostly happens offscreen so that the brutal details are left to the imagination. Meanwhile, I'm including Obi-Wan's encounter with Jango even though he doesn't have his lightsaber for most of it, because this is the one fight sequence in this film that's almost purely fun. Fans had felt cheated of an epic showdown between Boba Fett and Han Solo; well, this is pretty close. Because Obi-Wan loses his saber early on, he must rely on different resources to hold his own against Jango and his impressive arsenal. To top it all off, it's in the pouring rain. Emotional heft? Not a whole lot. But it's a visual treat.
Higher stakes here. Dooku is not a cryptic stranger like Maul; he was once a Jedi. Now he serves a darker purpose. He watched coolly as Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padmé stood chained to pillars, sentenced to be executed. Everything escalated from there, the numbers on both sides of the battle growing larger and larger, Jedi against battle droids, clonetroopers against the entire droid army...and now it's all come down to this.
Anakin is in a bad state of mind. Jedi have been killed at Dooku's command. Padmé was knocked out of their transport and left behind against his violent protests. The parallels with the Luke/Vader duel in Episode V are pointed. Both awash in fear for their endangered loved ones, rushing headlong into a confrontation with a superior opponent, both paying a brutal price. There is a contrast, too, with the climatic duel of Episode I, where Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fought side by side. Anakin's reckless rage prevents this, and the two of them cannot separately defeat Dooku. The filming of the Anakin/Dooku phase of the fight is an intriuging set of close-ups rather than long shots, focusing on their faces and the interplay of light, color and shadow. Very evocative of Anakin's inner struggle.
Then of course we have the marvelous showdown between Yoda and Dooku, perhaps slightly less emotionally significant, but visually spectacular. Yoda really was a "great warrior," though he never gloried in it. He is truly sorrowful after the fight, mourning his former apprentice's fall to the dark and his own failure to prevent Dooku's escape. Nothing is ultimately resolved in this battle between good and evil, and the lines are blurring more and more.
Anakin fares much better physically in his next encounter with Dooku, but his soul is ever more at stake. The setting is designed to match many of the features of the Emperor's throne room from Episode VI, and we see Palpatine reacting similarly to a duel between his apprentice and the one who might replace him. Anakin has grown wise enough to fight Dooku side-by-side with Obi-Wan, but this becomes irrelevant when Obi-Wan is knocked unconscious. With his friend incapacitated, Anakin is ever more vulnerable to the temptation to give into anger. This anger fuels his final rampage against Dooku, allowing him to cut off his hands and eventually behead him, but he is wracked with guilt afterwards. It carries much of the resonance of the final duel from Episode VI, but only inconclusively, as a setup for Anakin's coming downfall. The time for really impressive, emotionally devastating confrontations will come later.
Very little emotional weight here, but that's kind of the point. General Grievous was only ever a distraction devised by Palpatine -- first as an excuse to prolong the war, and then as a ploy to get Obi-Wan away from Coruscant and Anakin. Their duel is a visual achievement, fun to watch, but ultimately bearing little import except as it leads into Anakin's succumbing to the Dark Side as well as Palpatine's formation of the Empire. I will say that there is something rather chilling about Grievous fighting with the lightsabers that he's taken from the Jedi he killed, but in the end his boasts are hollow -- he's no match for Obi-Wan, even when he has to resort to the "uncivilized" weapon of a blaster. You know, considering how much he lectures Anakin about taking care of his lightsaber, Obi-Wan sure loses his own saber a lot. Heh.
When Yoda tells Luke, "Do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor," he knows from hard experience. He marches in there, confident that he can take on Palpatine. By the end, he's running away with his metaphorical tail between his legs. Oh, he does some damage on the Emperor's side, no question, but at best you could call their match a draw. Visually, it's awesome. The vast Senate chamber is the perfect location for their duel, both for its literal enormous scope as well as the symbolic meaning of Palpatine using the former instruments of democracy as tremendous projectile weapons. There's saberplay, Force lightning, telekinetic attacks and feats of supernatural prowess. There's a fair amount of emotional heft as well, but it's pretty mild compared to...
The ultimate duel. I love everything about it. Also, simultaneously, I struggle to get through it because it's just so emotionally devastating. It has all the elements of the confrontation on the Death Star in Episode IV, but amplified to a thousand because they're young, at the height of their powers, and the wounds of betrayal are fresh and raw. The duel starts at the feet of Padmé's unconscious form, for heaven's sake! I'm pretty much crying from start to finish.
Setting? How about a volcanic planet with flumes of lava spewing everywhere? There's soaring from collapsing metal structures, swinging on cables, balancing on precarious ledges, finally culminating on the "high ground" that will prove Anakin's undoing. Music? Personally, I feel "Battle of the Heroes" is superior even to "Duel of the Fates." So poignant, intense and emotive. Fighting prowess? Yeah, the choreography is spectacular, and every attack is deeply personal, former student turning against his teacher, letting all his suppressed resentment pour out undiluted. Moments like their simultaneous Force-push, how painfully similar and equally-matched they are -- they give me chills.
Some people complain that it's not realistic, that the setting is absurd, the fighting too fast or too polished or something. To that I can only say....Why on earth are you watching a space fantasy movie if you want everything to be realistic?? Go and watch a period drama or Robin Hood or whatever and leave me alone to enjoy the volcano planet! Ahem. I understand that it's possible to cross a line into the comical if you're not careful, but wildly imaginative scenarios have always been a feature of Star Wars, not a bug. In the originals, Lucas chose as extreme locales as possible -- desert, icy waste, giant forest -- and CGI only enabled him to be even more imaginative, no longer confined by what can be find on this planet. I love over-the-top settings like Mustafar. I love escaping to vivid, impossible places. That's part of the joy of fantasy. And setting a lightsaber duel in a boring, regular old forest, with a bunch of bumbling kids who hardly know which end of the saber to hold -- but no, I promised I wouldn't dwell on that.
Anyway, there you have it -- my thoroughly biased metrics to determine what makes a lightsaber duel great. It would probably break all rules of scientific plausibility to invent an actual working lightsaber, but if they ever do, I'll know how to use one to maximal dramatic effect. Nah...knowing me, I'd just accidentally cut off my own hand.
Just for fun (that's why I spend hours writing posts like this, for fun) I wanted to explore what makes the lightsaber fights in Star Wars so entertaining, and then discuss each one in these terms. This may lead to a passing mention of why the fight in Disney Space Movie didn't work for me at all, in any way, though I promise I won't dwell on it. Mostly, I'm going to rank the fights in each of the six films -- not as better or worse than each other, but as a series of escalating encounters over the course of each trilogy that culminate in two duels containing the maximum of adrenaline and emotional intensity.
There are two main components of a lightsaber duel, I believe, that allow it to effectively entertain the audience as well as develop the storyline: the emotional context, and the technical prowess of the fight. Each duel (and though that term literally refers to two fighters, let's just assume it includes fights with any number of participants) contains these two elements to a greater or lesser degree. The technical prowess -- what you might call the "wow factor" if you like soundbites -- can be further divided into the relative skill of the fighters and the setting of the fight. So let's look at each encounter with these factors in mind.
First off, the fight in the Mos Eisley cantina. This is the first time we see Obi-Wan or anyone use a lightsaber. It's a very brief, blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, filmed in such a way that you can't really tell what happened until you see the severed arm on the floor. The emotional factor is low -- Obi-Wan has no connection with these ruffians other than the fact that they're threatening Luke -- but it does give us an impressive first glimpse of a lightsaber's capabilities, and by extension a Jedi's. The locale is a seedy den, not particularly awe-inspiring though certainly alien. It provides a solid baseline for what to expect from this strange weapon, and everything afterwards will be building up from it.
Here's a much more intense emotional factor. Even without any of the other movies for context, we would know that this is a fateful encounter. Vader is the student who turned against his teacher; Obi-Wan is the serene exile who remains calm against every taunt and insult. The technical aspects? Not quite as impressive. Sure, there's something very evocative about stark interior of the Death Star, but in terms of the actual fighting, it's hardly super-charged. They're old; they're wary. The dialogue is just as important as the blows they exchange.
That's not to say I'm disparaging this fight! It serves exactly the purpose it needs to -- presenting the tragic conclusion to Anakin/Vader and Obi-Wan's partnership, and the sacrifice Obi-Wan is willing to make so the others can escape. It is poignant and heart-rending, more of a quiet elegy than a wild rush. It also sets up the intriguing notion of Obi-Wan becoming "more powerful than you could possibly imagine" which will play out in the remainder of the trilogy.
This is the fight that's not really a fight at all, but some kind of trance-like test for Luke. Which he fails. In terms of technical wonder, it's brief and rather one-sided -- Luke is beheading not-Vader after just a few parries. The sequence is filmed in slow motion to emphasize the surreality of what's happening, I believe the only instance of slow-mo in the entire saga. (Thank goodness, as far as I'm concerned -- slow-motion overuse is one of my cinematic pet peeves.) Emotionally, we are left with a sense of unease about Luke's progress. What does it mean when he sees his own face in Vader's mask? We are forced to recognize that being a Jedi is about more than just fighting skills.
Which is a perfect set-up for the culminating duel of Episode V. This one has everything the Obi-Wan/Vader duel had in Episode IV, amped up to the next level. The emotional stakes are higher than ever -- Luke is looking for revenge both for Ben and his father; he's also seeking to prove himself and test out the skills he's been honing while training with Yoda. Vader, of course, has his own agenda of luring Luke to the Dark Side.
Here's the thing -- Luke doesn't stand a chance, fighting-wise. He seems to be holding his own fairly well early in the duel, while they're still in the carbon-freezing chamber. He fends off Vader's attacks; he jumps out of the pit before Vader can freeze him; he even uses some telekinesis to supplement his saberwork, which we'd never seen in a duel before.
But then in the next phase of the fight, Vader unleashes the full extent of his powers, and we realize that he's only been toying with Luke before now. He was assessing his son's abilities, testing him...but now that he knows what level Luke is at, he switches tactics and begins a brutal assault. Throwing objects at him, pummeling him from every direction, taunting him. All with the aim of bringing him to the Dark Side. This is where emotional and technical prowess come together to spectacular effect. The setting is a visual feast of shadowy chambers, eerie lighting, stark contrasts, dizzying catwalks. Vader is a consummate fighter, and Luke's defenses become more and more enfeebled. There is physical peril -- Luke loses his hand and hangs over a terrifying precipice -- and emotional anguish -- Vader reveals the truth about his father and offers the startling prospect of ruling the galaxy together. "It is the only way," he claims, but at the moment of climax, Luke makes a different choice and jumps into the abyss. It couldn't get much more intense than this...and yet it does.
But first, we get this exciting reveal of how Luke's powers have progressed since the last film. His appearance at the start of Episode VI is shrouded in mystery -- we're left wondering what is plan is, whether he's come to terms with the events of the last film, and whether his dark hooded robe is meant to hint at his potential succumbing to the Dark Side.
And then he charges into battle with a brand new lightsaber, handily taking on a whole barge full of Jabba's goons. For the time being, we can set our questions and worries aside, because wow! We've never seen a Jedi's powers like this before. Ah, lightsabers can deflect blaster bolts -- that settles the question of how they'd be any use against ranged weapons. And Luke's overall physical prowess is considerable as he leaps from one foe to the next. It seems, as the title indicates, that the Jedi really has returned. Most of the important emotional context is in relation to Luke's character development -- there's not a lot of depth to Jabba's goons -- but we do see the value of friends helping each other, a humbling and deeply-altering experience for former loner Han Solo. In the context of what's coming, this is a rather lighthearted treat, a set-up for more serious stuff.
This is it. Everything in Luke and Vader's storylines has been leading up to this. From the moment Luke first asked how his father died, to his decision to surrender to Imperials on Endor in order to protect his friends, this final confrontation was looming. And it does not disappoint. The setting -- the Emperor's throne room is visually striking, as harsh and eerie as the underside of Cloud City, with the added view of the perilous battle between the Rebel and Imperial starfleets. The fighting prowess -- Luke is no longer a rash, overconfident novice, and he and his father match blow for blow.
Then there's the emotional heft. The fight is not for anyone's life, but for Luke and Anakin's souls. Luke senses good in his father and pleads with him to turn back. Vader resists, forcing him to fight. And the Emperor watches and cackles, certain that he will win either way. Vader finds Luke's greatest vulnerability -- taunting that he will try to turn Leia, his sister, to the Dark Side. Luke briefly succumbs to anger and hate, lashing out until he has done the same to Vader as he did to him. Then he stares at the stub of his mechanical arm -- he hardly even seems to hear the Emperor's words. The lightsaber duel has ended, but the true battle continues to play out with startling twists and turns. Luke refuses to kill his father. He throws away his weapon. The Emperor attacks him. And at last, Anakin's good self reemerges as he saves his son's life, sacrificing his own in the process. We have gone through every height and depth, from the terrifying chorus during Luke's rampage to the elegiac rendition of the Imperial March that marks Anakin's death. This is everything that Episode VI's climactic lightsaber duel needed to be.
Then with Episode I, Lucas begins to portray a galaxy where, instead of a lone exile training a headstrong youth, Jedi Knights are vast in number and command almost universal respect. We see why almost immediately -- Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan make quick work of hordes of battle droids, hardly blinking an eye. Their saberwork is astounding; they also draw upon multiple supernatural abilities including uncanny swiftness. No wonder the shifty Federation leaders were so unwilling to be in the same room as two Jedi. The emotional context is pretty lightweight to start with. We as audience members are naturally excited to see the Jedi in their days of glory, but the Jedi themselves have little emotional investment in fighting a mindless army of droids. The same is true throughout the initial sequence on Naboo, when they're rescuing the queen and fighting their way through the hanger to escape on her ship. Looks cool, very impressive, but more important stuff is yet to come.
The first encounter with Darth Maul is brief but very intense. From the moment Maul nearly runs little Ani over to the rescue that leaves Qui-Gon exhausted but safe on the floor of the starship, we hardly have a chance to breathe. It is clearly a tease of when they'll meet again and engage in a more sustained battle with far-reaching consequences. But this taste is important. We see that Sidious just might be right about Maul's abilities. He left Qui-Gon utterly winded and troubled on top of that. He caught him by surprise just like the Sith's return caught the Jedi Order by surprise. You could speculate about all sorts of foreshadowing and symbolism in this scene, from Anakin being endangered by a Sith's attack to his fateful meeting with Obi-Wan coming in its wake. However, its primary purpose was to set up the climatic duel coming up in the film's four-part final battle.
And here it is. This is pretty close to maximum adrenaline. All the cool factors are there -- the awesome setting, the incredibly choreographed fighting, two noble Jedi against a foe whose appearance creates a visceral evocation of evil, the music that has become the most recognized theme of the prequels.
Yet the emotional context is actual rather low in comparison to the other films' climatic duels -- a good thing, because you have to start lower to build things up. Sure, the existence of the Sith stands in opposition to everything the Jedi have believed for a thousand years, but it's more of an abstract thing than deeply personal stakes. No betrayal of old friendships or a burning need for vengeance. Maul wants revenge against the Jedi generally, but probably not Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan in particular. It's all symbolic of the overall battle between good and evil. The most significant emotional blow, of course, comes when Qui-Gon is killed. But its import won't fully play out until we have the context of later events in Episode II and III, realizing how Qui-Gon's death influenced the course of Anakin's fate. In the moment, it's simply sad, and we mourn with Obi-Wan.
There's plenty of saberwork throughout the course of Episode II, including Anakin and Obi-Wan's confrontation with Zam Wesell and Anakin's grief-driven rampage against the Sandpeople, but I'm not going to give all of them detailed explanation. Much of it serves a similar purpose to the ongoing use of lightsabers in Episode I -- showcasing the skills of trained Jedi Knights in the old Republic, while also revealing that Anakin has much of the same recklessness and impatience that his son will have. His attack on the Tusken Raiders, while deeply important for his character arc, mostly happens offscreen so that the brutal details are left to the imagination. Meanwhile, I'm including Obi-Wan's encounter with Jango even though he doesn't have his lightsaber for most of it, because this is the one fight sequence in this film that's almost purely fun. Fans had felt cheated of an epic showdown between Boba Fett and Han Solo; well, this is pretty close. Because Obi-Wan loses his saber early on, he must rely on different resources to hold his own against Jango and his impressive arsenal. To top it all off, it's in the pouring rain. Emotional heft? Not a whole lot. But it's a visual treat.
Higher stakes here. Dooku is not a cryptic stranger like Maul; he was once a Jedi. Now he serves a darker purpose. He watched coolly as Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padmé stood chained to pillars, sentenced to be executed. Everything escalated from there, the numbers on both sides of the battle growing larger and larger, Jedi against battle droids, clonetroopers against the entire droid army...and now it's all come down to this.
Anakin is in a bad state of mind. Jedi have been killed at Dooku's command. Padmé was knocked out of their transport and left behind against his violent protests. The parallels with the Luke/Vader duel in Episode V are pointed. Both awash in fear for their endangered loved ones, rushing headlong into a confrontation with a superior opponent, both paying a brutal price. There is a contrast, too, with the climatic duel of Episode I, where Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fought side by side. Anakin's reckless rage prevents this, and the two of them cannot separately defeat Dooku. The filming of the Anakin/Dooku phase of the fight is an intriuging set of close-ups rather than long shots, focusing on their faces and the interplay of light, color and shadow. Very evocative of Anakin's inner struggle.
Then of course we have the marvelous showdown between Yoda and Dooku, perhaps slightly less emotionally significant, but visually spectacular. Yoda really was a "great warrior," though he never gloried in it. He is truly sorrowful after the fight, mourning his former apprentice's fall to the dark and his own failure to prevent Dooku's escape. Nothing is ultimately resolved in this battle between good and evil, and the lines are blurring more and more.
Anakin fares much better physically in his next encounter with Dooku, but his soul is ever more at stake. The setting is designed to match many of the features of the Emperor's throne room from Episode VI, and we see Palpatine reacting similarly to a duel between his apprentice and the one who might replace him. Anakin has grown wise enough to fight Dooku side-by-side with Obi-Wan, but this becomes irrelevant when Obi-Wan is knocked unconscious. With his friend incapacitated, Anakin is ever more vulnerable to the temptation to give into anger. This anger fuels his final rampage against Dooku, allowing him to cut off his hands and eventually behead him, but he is wracked with guilt afterwards. It carries much of the resonance of the final duel from Episode VI, but only inconclusively, as a setup for Anakin's coming downfall. The time for really impressive, emotionally devastating confrontations will come later.
Very little emotional weight here, but that's kind of the point. General Grievous was only ever a distraction devised by Palpatine -- first as an excuse to prolong the war, and then as a ploy to get Obi-Wan away from Coruscant and Anakin. Their duel is a visual achievement, fun to watch, but ultimately bearing little import except as it leads into Anakin's succumbing to the Dark Side as well as Palpatine's formation of the Empire. I will say that there is something rather chilling about Grievous fighting with the lightsabers that he's taken from the Jedi he killed, but in the end his boasts are hollow -- he's no match for Obi-Wan, even when he has to resort to the "uncivilized" weapon of a blaster. You know, considering how much he lectures Anakin about taking care of his lightsaber, Obi-Wan sure loses his own saber a lot. Heh.
When Yoda tells Luke, "Do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor," he knows from hard experience. He marches in there, confident that he can take on Palpatine. By the end, he's running away with his metaphorical tail between his legs. Oh, he does some damage on the Emperor's side, no question, but at best you could call their match a draw. Visually, it's awesome. The vast Senate chamber is the perfect location for their duel, both for its literal enormous scope as well as the symbolic meaning of Palpatine using the former instruments of democracy as tremendous projectile weapons. There's saberplay, Force lightning, telekinetic attacks and feats of supernatural prowess. There's a fair amount of emotional heft as well, but it's pretty mild compared to...
The ultimate duel. I love everything about it. Also, simultaneously, I struggle to get through it because it's just so emotionally devastating. It has all the elements of the confrontation on the Death Star in Episode IV, but amplified to a thousand because they're young, at the height of their powers, and the wounds of betrayal are fresh and raw. The duel starts at the feet of Padmé's unconscious form, for heaven's sake! I'm pretty much crying from start to finish.
Setting? How about a volcanic planet with flumes of lava spewing everywhere? There's soaring from collapsing metal structures, swinging on cables, balancing on precarious ledges, finally culminating on the "high ground" that will prove Anakin's undoing. Music? Personally, I feel "Battle of the Heroes" is superior even to "Duel of the Fates." So poignant, intense and emotive. Fighting prowess? Yeah, the choreography is spectacular, and every attack is deeply personal, former student turning against his teacher, letting all his suppressed resentment pour out undiluted. Moments like their simultaneous Force-push, how painfully similar and equally-matched they are -- they give me chills.
Some people complain that it's not realistic, that the setting is absurd, the fighting too fast or too polished or something. To that I can only say....Why on earth are you watching a space fantasy movie if you want everything to be realistic?? Go and watch a period drama or Robin Hood or whatever and leave me alone to enjoy the volcano planet! Ahem. I understand that it's possible to cross a line into the comical if you're not careful, but wildly imaginative scenarios have always been a feature of Star Wars, not a bug. In the originals, Lucas chose as extreme locales as possible -- desert, icy waste, giant forest -- and CGI only enabled him to be even more imaginative, no longer confined by what can be find on this planet. I love over-the-top settings like Mustafar. I love escaping to vivid, impossible places. That's part of the joy of fantasy. And setting a lightsaber duel in a boring, regular old forest, with a bunch of bumbling kids who hardly know which end of the saber to hold -- but no, I promised I wouldn't dwell on that.
Anyway, there you have it -- my thoroughly biased metrics to determine what makes a lightsaber duel great. It would probably break all rules of scientific plausibility to invent an actual working lightsaber, but if they ever do, I'll know how to use one to maximal dramatic effect. Nah...knowing me, I'd just accidentally cut off my own hand.
