Best lightsaber fight in the prequels?

Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan vs Maul was definitely my favorite. It wasn't too long, it had a great build up and once Qui-Gon was defeated it had an emotional urgency to it from Obi-Wan who up to that point in episode 1 seemed just along for the ride.

Anakin vs Obi-Wan although too long and convoluted, I really like how they mirrored each other's moves. It truly resembled how I'd imagined a master vs apprentice clash would look.

 

Maul Vs. obi wan and qui gon
it was our first real introduction to what the Jedi were capable of during the final years. adiabatic and fast paced sword play with jumps, pushes, duel blades. honestly i was disappointed when Maul died because i loved the way he fought. i wanted to se more. latter on we se Yoda fight Dooku using a similar style. it was both engaging and emotional. Obi Wan was left to watch his master get killed and then an explosion of emotion unleashed on Maul. this showed us that Obi wan was not always calm and rational as he was in Ep. 4,yet he was able to use is raw emotion to defeat his enemy without giving into the dark side.

 

Has to be Anakin vs Obi-Wan. It was the fight everyone was waiting for. I can remember talking with my friends about what happened with them long before the prequels ever existed. Was great to see it on film at last.

 

I found the greatest downfall with the PT duels to be the occasional one-handed use of the lightsabre and the excessive twirling and acrobatics. Although it looks more visually impressive, I feel it takes away from the emotional fuel behind the fights and replaces it with a cold, calculated feel that doesn't seem quite right in places.

Take the Anakin and Obi Wan duel: although there are some excellent moments of pure anger and sadness (particularly Obi Wan's speech and the following strikes) within the action, there are also several moments where you lose track of the emotions for the over-choreographed action. That's not to say it's not brilliantly done, I just personally prefer the older, rawer style.

The ROTJ duel between Vader and Luke is a brilliant example of that raw emotion. As soon as Vader brings up Leia and Luke loses it, you feel the impact of every single hit right up until Vader loses his hand. I guess that is what I wanted in the Anakin vs Obi Wan duel. Maybe it's the breaks in tension with Vader taunting Luke that really gave every hit that impact.

All of this in mind, I would say the final Maul duel is my favourite of the PT. It has the choreography whilst maintaining the realism and the feeling of weight behind every hit. The Sabres are held and swung in a way that really conveys power. Not to mention the tense pauses and that emotional finale between Kenobi and Maul following Qui Gon's death. Probably my third favourite Star Wars duel overall, following the two Luke vs Vader duels.

 

Favorite

Close Second

 

I have to say I loved the Anakin vs. Obi-Wan duel. If you think about it, these two guys, twirling and dancing, to some it seems silly and cheap, but to me it actually makes sense. At first master and apprentice, to eventually becoming trusted brothers, tasked often with the same missions due to their high success rate, and the fact that both, wait for it-

They were the best duelists in the galaxy. No Mace Windu, no Darth Maul, no nothing.

They could fight so long because they were some of the war's longest lasting and greatest heroes, and were the first to be called to action. They could fight well against any foe, whether it be bounty hunter, Sith, etc. And to match each others strikes and blows, it's because they had long lived together, and had grown together as brothers. "The Hero With No Fear" and "The Negotiator" were different, but together, they were unstoppable. Against each other, this duel had to end with a single mistake, and it did with Anakin's overconfident jump. No other Jedi could have fought so long or so well. This duel was raw, blistering, physical, force-power based, and lightsaber skilled base, and heroes of their peaks fought the best fight ever witnessed in the galaxy. Nothing can top it, and nothing after ever could or would.

That's what makes their final duel in A New Hope bittersweet. They had the greatest duel of their lives, and now both older men were now completely on opposite sides. One a ruler of fear, the other, a hermit and protector. Their roles were different. Brutal, simple, effective, and deadly was Vader, and calm, sharp, wise, and sad was Ben Kenobi. They were no longer fighters of the same caliber as before. Vader had finished eradicating most of the Jedi, and his skills were bare-bone. Kenobi had barely ever lit a lightsaber for 19 years. They had a brilliant duel, then ended their relationship with a calm talk with their swords. Their first fight was long gone, and now all they did was simply play a game of time and hope, one hoping to buy time, the other wanting revenge and to end his old friend. Vader didn't defeat Kenobi, who became a Force Ghost, and "more powerful than you could possibly imagine", and Kenobi never fought to stop his once-brother as before. Their time, skills, legacy were reaching an end, and now it was time to say goodbye to possibly a continuation of the greatest duel ever. They fought the weakest and possibly poorest duel to some, yet the last duel was simple, slow, heavy, and was a breath of wind, ending their journey in the galaxy together.

 

Easily Anakin/Obi-Wan for me.

 

There was a lot of spectacle over substance, I agree. That bizarre baton-twirling contest Anakin and Obi Wan got into in the Mustafar control room crystallized the problem for me: rarely did we see combatants in these saber duels acting like the blades themselves were particularly dangerous. Flippity-flip-spinny-spin may look cool from a purely visual standpoint, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, nor does it convey any real sense of the danger that a lightsaber blade poses.

The OT saber fights had a lot going for them, but I've always felt like a major underlying factor was that you could often tell that the combatants were genuinely wary of each other's saber blades. In the PT, they often didn't even seem particularly concerned about getting sliced by their OWN blades, let alone the other guy's.

 

Yeah, I know the part you mean in the control room; that always gets me every time. I think, as you said, the lacking sense of danger is the big differentiating factor between PT and OT. That emotional link to the audience is thinned and the tension is lost, leaving the audience much further from the edge of their seats!

 

I preferred the rematch between Count Dooku against Obi Won & Anakin on the Iron Fist it paved the way for Anakin's chosen path to the darkside.

 

Anakin and Obi-Wan. This fight was amazing. I think people are quick to judge this fight style and flash. Jedi don't swing swords like fencers alone they are also reaching out in the force feeling for the push and the pull of the enemy the subtle tug of the force guiding their strikes and parries. In PM Qui-Gon says of Anakin, "He appears to have such fast reflexes cause the sees things before they happen. Its a Jedi trait." The PT fights don't show disregard for the danger of the weapon or flashy style over substance they are a spiritual battle as much as a physical one. The brief exchange where both Anakin and Obi-Wan are whipping the sabres around but never touching blades they are racing for position for the edge they can sense through the force, their connection to each other that to parry is a waste or worse a trap.

 

Right. That's why, after all of that "racing for position," with each combatant allegedly waiting to sense an opening through the Force, they simply slam their sabers together at the exact same moment.

 

There was a time I once thought myself clever. Your sarcasm has shown my life to be a but a hollow shell. I will now go home and rethink it.

 

They were so evenly matched I thought this was going to carry all over the planet apart from the lava areas.

 

Obi-Wan Vs. Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker

The raw emotion and the importance of this fight for the rest of the galaxy. If Anakin had not turned to the Dark Side and they could have fought against Sidious, history would have taken a drastically different turn.

Also, the sheer emotional power of this fight. Brother Vs. Brother, Light Vs. Dark. It's Star Wars at it's purest, it's what the entirety of the PT had been building towards. And IMHO is paid off.

 

I think the two on one fight pitting Anakin & Kenobi vs Sidious may have ended the way it did with Mace Windu.

 

Obi Wan/Qui Gon/Maul, hands down.

 

Couldn't have put it better myself.

A lot of people talk about the one handed use of the sabers in the PT but after re-watching this duel with the above video link at least here they are using them mostly two handed. I have not looked at the other PT duels for that particular detail yet. Also, even Luke starts using his one handed a bit towards the end of RotJ. On the other end, there are those that say the saber blades are weightless, which would go against the need to use two hands. In the OT DVD box set there was either commentary or bonus feature (or both) where Lucas states that they still need some strength to swing the blade due to gyroscopic effects.

With the force guiding their motions and the fact that they seam to have more opportunities to use them, their skill and confidence with them stays at its peak, so that would account for their lack of fear of hurting themselves with their own blade.

Yes, the big twirl behind their backs was a little over the top but it was one moment. I see the end of that twirl sequence as one sensing a possible opening and the other sensing the other's attack coming in. "Always in motion, the future is." Even immediate future, the moment one senses the opening the other senses the need to close that opening

 

Yep that duel was great

 

My favourite Lightsaber duel is Yoda and Darth Sidious. Since seeing ESB when I was a child, it was something I always wanted to have happened. When the PT was announced I grew even more excited that it might actually happen and then ROTS came and BOOM there is was.


This scene is probably my favourite out of any of the films. The location of the fight is a great respresentation of what the two are fighting for. Yoda is fighting to protect the Repulic and stop Sidious. Sidious is fighting to gain control of the Republic and the Galaxy. Its like the ultimate Jedi vs. Sith battle and I LOVE it