Alright, so y'all already ripped off the bandage and now I'm gonna go and apply a
generous amount of salt on the wound.
Jerry; The Prequels do not have good fight scenes. Star Wars has *concepts* for good fight scenes squandered by horrible shots, terrible choreography that focuses more on looking cool than having any actual weight or bearing to them, and awful direction. Anybody who says they look great has either not done any research into what sword-play actually looks like, or just doesn't fucking care. (And yes, I'm going to go into his inevitable defense, give me a second.)
Characters have no weight to them. They fly off the handle at any second and move fast and the sabers are quite flashy, but nothing feels like it has any impact. Compare this to Return of the Jedi, where Luke loses his composure and just starts mindlessly swinging at Vader. It's one of the only times that the lightsabers actually feel like they're hitting each other in the entire series because of the added weight and heavy strikes that Luke delivers, which is only accentuated by Vader's very pathetic and desperate recoils.
The reason why they have no weight is because the actors are doing
extremely controlled maneuvers using extremely light plastic rods to perform all their stunts, and it feels just as fake and bland as action in a Power Rangers show. How is the impact of two concentrated blades of light only amounting to essentially just tapping each other lightly with faint flicks of the wrist? You can call the action cool all you want, they're not doing anything spectacular if all the spinning and flipping just amounts to two people carefully, but quickly swinging sticks with no actual intention of hurting each other. (Something you can read on their faces if you watch each fight scene in the prequels.)
"Ah but wait! What about that moment when Anakin is choking Obi-Wan! That's intense action, right?"
No. It's emotive, that's for sure, but it's also one character holding another character's neck and making faces; significantly simpler and requires far less effort and dexterity than actual fight choreography to make convincing, and Anakin's over-exaggerated faces make the experience more comical than anything. If I'm supposed to impressed because he's sneering at Obi-Wan, then I should also be impressed by every time Goku get's mad and punches someone in a fight. Fucking pathetic.
Conversely, here's this action sequence from Kingsman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1WWDBTda2Y
Do you notice something, Jerry? Harry (the guy in the suit) is taking out a room of antagonistic people after starting a riot in the church. Look closely and you can see why this is a phenomenally well done action scene. You can see the weight, pause, recoil, and effect of every punch, throw, movement, hell every turn in each part of this scene and Harry progressively loses more and more of his composure as it all goes on. He takes hits, starts to look worse for ware, yet continues to eat punishment for the sake of killing. His hair gets ruffled, he has to improvise for weapons, and his suit starts looking like shit halfway through due to the sheer strain of what he's putting it through. There's grit, there's punch, there's speed...most importantly is the choreography takes special time to make sure the audience sees the consequences of each action, not by cramming it in our faces with exposition, but by subtly letting our brains digest everything at a smooth pace. The camera work is chaotic to emphasize the speed of the scene, and each time it focuses on an action bit, the action is extreme and original; no one else is killed in a similar fashion.
This takes planning, hands-on training, and actually requires a set to utilize. Star Wars fakes every action piece it does and anytime the characters go through physical strife you can plainly see the cosmetics team's handy-work in every part of it. (I'm so glad that a guy who get's chocked out, is in the middle of a fucking volcanic planet's lava river, and had been dueling for ages has a bunch of soot on his face but visibly
no sweat or cuts or any sort of actual physical fatigue on his face whatsoever gee it's almost like it's an unconvincing fight scene Jerry you fucking sperg.)
That's not even getting into fights with Yoda, Emperor Palpatine, and General Greivous, all of which use copious amounts of CGI which forces actors to have lightsaber battles with
nothing.
And really, this is the advantage of animation and why anime's fight scenes are so legendary. Because the characters aren't real, all the choreography that actors physically have to practice and carefully perfect in order to create the illusions of a fight? Fuck it, let that character's arm *actually* get cut off, they're not real. Consequences of a fight have so much more bearing when the people in it can take much more damage than conventional media will allow, which is part of the reason why anime fights are so highly regarded. They can push boundaries and be visually appealing while still satisfying that base gladiatorial urge to see people struggle against each other in a fight. It's already not real, so there's a lot your suspension of disbelief is willing to tolerate in that regard.
Jerry, if your problem with anime fight scenes is that they aren't realistic, what the fuck do you think you're doing trying to justify the Prequels' fights as being good in a series where a sword-type weapon
lacks any guard to speak of and primarily relies on a type of sword play exclusive to wildly swinging rather than precisely stabbing? Because, you fucking dumb-ass, that's what actual sword fights in practically all parts of human history were like.
Wow, it's almost like you're fucking r,etarded.
to you man.
