Star Wars Star Wars Discussion Thread - LET THE PAST D-! Oh, wait, nevermind

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StormEagle said:
That’s another thing.

The prequels get, rightly or wrongly, a ton of shit flung at them. I personally blame Mr. Plinkett for popularizing a lot of the complaints.

But if there is one thing the prequels have going for them, it’s the fight choreography. Most of the fights in the prequels feel authentic and like there’s actual “weight”, for lack of a better word, to them.
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I have to disagree here -- the prequel lightsaber fights had style but never weight, because they were impressively flashy and athletic but held to the Hollywood standard (which goes all the way back to the Errol Flynn days) of always dramatically swinging at each other's blades, exchanging strikes that for the most part don't actually threaten each other at any point. The slower, less athletic fencing style seen in the original trilogy isn't as dramatically engaging as the prequel fights, but it is a much more realistic style.

As for the sequels, Kylo Ren's berserk rage flailing is an incredibly shitty lightsaber style, but it's shitty in a way that perfectly fits his character -- if anything, it would be unrealistic for him to make competent use of any proper style.
 
Note that the 'classic era' swords and swashbuckling movies were as good as they were for two out-of-character reasons:

1) It's a lot less obvious that they're just beating on each other's blades when the blades aren't glowing and the cameras are limited.

2) A significant number of Hollywood stars actually fenced as one of their preferred forms of recreation, so they actually knew how to handle their blades and were generally basing their dramatic flailing around on exaggerations of actual fencing moves.
 
Jaenera Targaryen said:
Semantics; for all intents and purposes, it was a saberstaff.
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The difference in how it's physically handled are *extremely* important if you want to actually put it on screen. Exar Kun's combat style actually involved taking advantage of the variable-power nature of lightsabers to non-suicidally pass the second blade through his own body while dueling.

(Reportedly, the original plan for Phantom Menace *was* to have a double-bladed lightsaber just like Kun's; Ray Park was the one who pointed out that this was stupid and got them to extend the hilt so that he could use an actual staff-based fighting style.)
 
ShadowArxxy said:
(Reportedly, the original plan for Phantom Menace *was* to have a double-bladed lightsaber just like Kun's; Ray Park was the one who pointed out that this was stupid and got them to extend the hilt so that he could use an actual staff-based fighting style.)
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IIRC, Ray Park asked Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson to actually try and make contact with him during their duals so that the fight would really look like it had 'weight' behind the strikes. I believe he told them, "If you manage to hit me, I deserve it."
 
The Whispering Monk said:
IIRC, Ray Park asked Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson to actually try and make contact with him during their duals so that the fight would really look like it had 'weight' behind the strikes. I believe he told them, "If you manage to hit me, I deserve it."
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They don't appear to have succeeded in following that advice, given how their strikes consistently fall far short of his body and are clearly targeting his blade.

The bottom line, in all fairness, is that McGregor and Neeson are actors who were exclusively accustomed to stage fighting; Park was at that point in his career a martial artist working as a stuntman. Targeting blade is the norm in stage fighting because it's both dramatic and safe, especially for fast striking and counterstriking that isn't precisely choreographed in advance.
 
Pancakes and Pan Pizzas confirmed to exist in Star Wars.



Apparently both of these delicacies hail from Dathomir and some Nightsisters are trained in mastering these culinary arts (hence the term Pansexual as in only Nightsisters who are female can make these pan dishes). These additional skills will aid them in their quests as they go forth to find boyish rogue Jedis to make a proper man out of.
 
Jar-Jar.jpg
 
ShadowArxxy said:
I have to disagree here -- the prequel lightsaber fights had style but never weight, because they were impressively flashy and athletic but held to the Hollywood standard (which goes all the way back to the Errol Flynn days) of always dramatically swinging at each other's blades, exchanging strikes that for the most part don't actually threaten each other at any point. The slower, less athletic fencing style seen in the original trilogy isn't as dramatically engaging as the prequel fights, but it is a much more realistic style.

As for the sequels, Kylo Ren's berserk rage flailing is an incredibly shitty lightsaber style, but it's shitty in a way that perfectly fits his character -- if anything, it would be unrealistic for him to make competent use of any proper style.
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ShadowArxxy said:
Note that the 'classic era' swords and swashbuckling movies were as good as they were for two out-of-character reasons:

1) It's a lot less obvious that they're just beating on each other's blades when the blades aren't glowing and the cameras are limited.

2) A significant number of Hollywood stars actually fenced as one of their preferred forms of recreation, so they actually knew how to handle their blades and were generally basing their dramatic flailing around on exaggerations of actual fencing moves.
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Two things on this.

The last great Hollywood fencing fight was "The Princess Bride". And while that may seem like I'm joking, I'm not, the duel between the Masked Man and Inigo is actually one of the longest and most complicated stage fights ever put to film, and was mostly done by the actors, and actually was EXTENDED from the original plan due to how good the two got at it.

The other thing is that I think one major aspect we're missing concerning lightsaber duels is how the props changed from the OT to the PT. That's one of the massive reasons for the change in speed and weight to the fights. In the OT the props for Lightsabers were heavier and more fragile, they had to be swung and choreographed deliberately and carefully, so they focused on those aspects to ensure the fights told a good story. In comparison earlier Hollywood stage swords, which were often foils or actually properly balanced rapier, were often much lighter than the lightsabers, which is why they could be used so much quicker. Meanwhile by the time of the PT CGI had advanced enough to where the actors were basically swinging around plastic tubes which were light and easy to handle as the older style foils and thus they could bring back the speed... but of course they no longer had the weight to them the older props had.
 
S'task said:
Two things on this.

The last great Hollywood fencing fight was "The Princess Bride". And while that may seem like I'm joking, I'm not, the duel between the Masked Man and Inigo is actually one of the longest and most complicated stage fights ever put to film, and was mostly done by the actors, and actually was EXTENDED from the original plan due to how good the two got at it.
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Yes, I'm well aware of this. The verbal banter is also part and parcel of it, because while it's just as comically exaggerated as the actual sword-swinging, those are actual historical sword experts.

For example, Agrippa is Camillo Agrippa, a Renaissance-era Italian engineer who is considered one of the greatest European fencing theorists of all time; he played a major role in the development of the thrusting rapier, and his 1553 Treatise on the Science of Arms with Philosophical Dialogue is one of the most important intellectual works ever written on fencing swordsmanship. Agrippa's simplified system of four guard positions remains a fundamental of Italian-school fencing to this day.
 
More proof that Dromund Kaas (DK) chat on SWTOR is insane. We actually got into an impromptu therapy session, after one player was complaining that she was already 30 but still unmarried :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:

We basically ended up convincing her not to rush these things...that, and her being unmarried is one reason that she's still able to SWTOR in the first place. Calmed her down quickly enough :cool:

...makes me wonder why this kind of discussions never take place on Coruscant chat :unsure:
 
S'task said:
the duel between the Masked Man and Inigo is actually one of the longest and most complicated stage fights ever put to film, and was mostly done by the actors, and actually was EXTENDED from the original plan due to how good the two got at it.
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Just rewatched it. From a choreography perspective it's amazing, from a sword-fighting perspective it's an embarrassment.
S'task said:
In comparison earlier Hollywood stage swords, which were often foils or actually properly balanced rapier, were often much lighter than the lightsabers, which is why they could be used so much quicker. Meanwhile by the time of the PT CGI had advanced enough to where the actors were basically swinging around plastic tubes which were light and easy to handle as the older style foils and thus they could bring back the speed... but of course they no longer had the weight to them the older props had.
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Most lightsaber hilts are hand and a half in functionality. There are some rare exceptions like Duku's. This means that the best system to follow is European longsword arts, with some adjustments for doing one-handed surprise attacks. Speed is an inherent aspect of doing lightsaber combat, since there is no blade weight so you can do things with the sword that would break your wrist if done with steel (even with a very light blade). The speed allows for certain moves which are impractical with steel, but overall about 75% of what you can do is in common with longsword and saber/katana.
Jaenera Targaryen said:
We basically ended up convincing her not to rush these things...that, and her being unmarried is one reason that she's still able to SWTOR in the first place. Calmed her down quickly enough
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Or, she could just find a guy who doesn't care? Though, I'm assuming that she'd be in East or SE Asia, so the chances of that happening would be pretty close to nil.
 
Jaenera Targaryen said:
More proof that Dromund Kaas (DK) chat on SWTOR is insane. We actually got into an impromptu therapy session, after one player was complaining that she was already 30 but still unmarried :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:

We basically ended up convincing her not to rush these things...that, and her being unmarried is one reason that she's still able to SWTOR in the first place. Calmed her down quickly enough :cool:

...makes me wonder why this kind of discussions never take place on Coruscant chat :unsure:
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Heard of shitposting?

Meet Sithposting.
 
It was a different group than the one that did all the other star wars shows.

I've heard it starts up pretty slow but it really does well with the characters, payoffs, and world building.

If these people had done the other shows as well the conversation about star wars would be completely different than it is now.
 
The Whispering Monk said:
I guess I'll have to watch it then.
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Bigking321 said:
It was a different group than the one that did all the other star wars shows.

I've heard it starts up pretty slow but it really does well with the characters, payoffs, and world building.

If these people had done the other shows as well the conversation about star wars would be completely different than it is now.
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Andor was done by the same direction/production group that did HBO's Chernobyl.

So not surprised the put out more...mature material, that doesn't insult it's audience, than Filoni or KK.
 
So, The Templin Institute have put up a very interesting video concerning the putting together of a hypothetical Imperial Task Force for the purpose of hunting Rebel fleets.



I myself, whilst seeing the merits, believe he has put far too much emphasis on technology and indeed veers into a bit of overkill from time to time. You would not be engaging Rebel capital ships, but instead their smaller and faster escorts. Not to mention all the shiny tech is going to be a bother to supply.

That and he rejects the idea of using the gift from the Naval Gods that is the Venator class star destroyer. In Templin’s view, that is a ship of the Clone Wars and unfit for the Galactic Civil War.

What would be the composition of your fleet, lads?
 
1 ISD, 2 Victory I and/or IIs with any of the 1s having upgraded engines, 1 Venator, 1 Interdictor if possible, mix of 2 to 4 Gladiators and/or Vindicators, 8 Carrack class light cruisers with the mixed load out of ion cannons and laser cannons instead of either or that for some reason is what exists in otl, and 8 Raiders. Maybe 4 Strikes and another 4 Raiders plus a 2nd ISD if I'm having any favors left post getting good pilots and decent birds for them for my ships. Albeit good birds would be way way more important than more capital ships
 
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