How did Luke get so good with a saber?

Perhaps whatever is inside Obi-wan's box that he left behind in the new Star Wars comic series will give some explanation.

 

^This. Especially because of the prequels, Luke looks flawed and very rough when it comes to dueling, but he is also remarkably proficient without much training. The box must provide Luke the means to adjust or build a new light-saber, as well as learn the six forms Jedi used to practice before they were wiped out by Order 66. It could explain why when it came to dueling Vader, Luke was actually fairly decent, but he was completely destroyed without much force-training, which Vader had a supreme command of.

 

I think people say that Luke was the greatest Jedi of all time because of how he was built up in the EU. There was one part (can't remember from which story) where it was said that he swung a lightsaber so fast, that it seemed like he was wielding a thousand sabers at once (paraphrasing).

That said, I rewatched his duel with Vader in ROTJ. While it's certainly not the acrobatic style from the PT, he was no chopped liver. Luke was swinging with some serious fierceness and powerful blows. I also totally agree with the point that the Force guiding the wielder is a huge factor. If you imagine how strong Luke is supposed to be in the Force, it makes sense that he was able to defeat a powerful (yet with a diminished connection to the Force) Vader.

 

Luke's natural ability in the Force explains most of his lightsaber proficiency, but (from a narrative point of view) he lacks the easy, dancer-like moves of the PT Jedi. Ignoring the simple change of choreography style between the OT and the PT and simply explaining the change in story terms, it looks like a novice Jedi who is extremely lucky that all his potential opponents (his father and Sheev) are rusty with a saber and more dependent on telekinesis and Force lightning by the time they get to Return of the Jedi.

 

There were scenes scripted and shot featuring Luke training with a lightsaber on Dagobah, but they were never completed and eventually dropped. They did make it into the Marvel adaptation though.
I think the stuff exploring Luke's spiritual development was ultimately more important to the plot.

 

Maybe something like in Splinter on the Mind's Eye did happen with Ben's Force Ghost giving Lukes Body his Instincts and Abbilities in Swordwielding.

 

Perhaps one possible advantage of being a force ghost.

"If you strike me down..."

 

When people compare the Saber duels in the PT to the OT, I always picture some 5 year old with a Capri sun and a booger hanging out of his nose saying "Sweet! Look how many times Obi-Wan spins his lightsaber before he actually makes contact with Count Duku's Saber!" My point is, I think people get caught up in how cool the fights look, and don't realize that most of the moves the duelers use are completely unnecessary. Like right before obi-wan fights Greivous he does this whole Matrix-esque karate looking routine where he ends up in a cool pose. But in the OT the lightsaber duels consist of more decisive movements that are each intended to harm the opponent. In Jedi, Luke defeats Vader through shear strength of force when he repeatedly berates Vader at the end of their duel. This is by far my favorite duel in the saga because of the raw emotion involved. That's where the PT duels were lacking. While they may be flashy and entertaining, they're hollow "give-the-people-what-they-want" fights that merely serve to dazzle the audience instead of furthering the plot. All that being said, I have no idea how Luke improved his skills ABY.

 

First off I will say that Luke is very gifted in the force"so with little training he was able to pick up on major techniques". But from my point of view the fight in ESB always seemed like Vader was just toying with him. Really the one time Luke lands in a good shot, the next thing Vader does is take his hand off. Luke even eludes to the fact that Vader wouldn't kill him before in a line from ROTJ. I just don't think Vader was ever fully committed to killing his son.

 

I think he was just naturally really good at it. I also like to think the line 'the force is with you young Skywalker' was literal as well in that the force was trying to break the dark imbalance and kind of supercharged his abilities.

I know technical limitations at the time explain the slower lightsaber duels but I hate the idea that Vader was hindered by his suit so much as the only reason Luke could match him and that any half decent PT era jedi would beat him.
I've always thought of the OT duels (As they all feature Vader) being slower because Vader was so physically strong you couldn't use a light grip, one handed style or perform anything special because he'd simply bat the sword out of your hand. Yes he was slower but I like to think it was made up for by his strength and precision. That explains his and Obi Wan's samurai style defensive duel in ANH a lot better than 'old man vs broken machine man' as well and why whenever anyone faced him they'd hold the hilt for dear life with two hands close to their body to avoid being bullied

To be honest I also think Vader was just testing him in ESB until Luke got that hit in and Vader then dispatched him pretty swiftly, I don't think he had a massive amount of skill at that point. Because of that defeat I reckon Luke trained himself relentlessly with his saber until ROTJ

 

Hear, hear.
I'm going to draw on real world experience here - admittedly only the fading memories of two Kendo lessons in 2004 - but my 'take home' impressions were:

1. that footwork/balance is the foundation of everything. No letting a single foot leave the ground whenever possible (we had to practice slide stepping).
   
2. that EVERY swing of the blade was a killing move unless too dangerous. Zero wasted time/energy.

Just to clarify, I'm talking about more this:



and less this:



As to the topic, I'm going to have to go with Luke's natural force knowledge trumping opponents skill level/experience.

 

The OT bonus disc in the Blu-ray box features the raw footage of these scenes. Assuming that events in ESB stretched over several weeks there was plenty of training time for Luke, being trained by nobody less than one of the greatest Jedi masters.

 

I figure that he spent much of the off-camera time simply practicing, and Yoda undoubtedly taught him basic technique (as others have pointed out, there was a cut training sequence). We only saw a small part of what Yoda taught him, and that's evident in the film; they also cut a scene involving Luke Force jumping over a pond, but we still saw him Force jump out of the carbonite chamber (with a nice speed boost, too). Obviously, a large part of it is the Force.

--- Double Post Merged, Oct 28, 2015, Original Post Date: Oct 28, 2015 ---

You're totally correct. The Prequel fights were flashy dances, totally unlike actual sword fighting. You ask me, the Obi-Wan vs. Vader fight in A New Hope is one of the most authentic; two masters carefully probing each other's defenses, punctuated by rapid strikes and swift withdrawals. Yeah, they looked slow and clumsy, but they were cautious and showed economy of motion. The Prequel fights were mostly flash with very little substance.

 

I agree 100%.
In saying that I still have a soft spot for that final battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan. I see it as maybe the most amazing and tragic spectacle the space opera genre has offered us - like some incredible dance performance: the acting is skillful, the costume progression amazing, the backgrounds stunning, the SFX brilliant, the scoring is heart-wrenching and the dialogue is...not even wooden!
It has even exhausted me of superlatives.

Edit: A bit off topic, sorry!
Edit: Wait - his gene-pool vs his first saber trainer? Apology withdrawn.

 

Maybe it's in his blood to be a first fast learner, dad did admit to being a slow one.

 

Agreed on that.

 

Luke finds an old Jedi temple on the planet Davaron...

"where he finds three training remotes of the same type Obi-Wan Kenobi used when aboard the Millennium Falcon. Following instructions from the ghost of Obi-Wan, Luke learns more about how to connect with the force and increases his proficiency with the lightsaber, eventually completing fast-paced exercises with all 3 remotes simultaneously. This explains how he’s able to nearly stand his own (mostly) against Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back after a mere five minutes of lightsaber training in A New Hope."​

 

As well as the above, remember, Vader was trying to turn him, not kill him for most of their duelling time.

 

At this point, Vader's plan really now that he knows that he is his son is to convince him to come with him - join the dark side and together, they're going to overthrow the Emperor, which is the thematic device that is used through the whole movies. Sith lords are usually no more than two because if there is three, then two of them will gang up on one of them to try become the dominant Sith. Anakin would have been able to do it if he hadn't been debilitated. Now he's half machine and half man so he's lost a lot of the power of the Force, and he's lost a lot of his ability to be more powerful than the Emperor. But LUKE hasn't. Luke is Vader's hope. His motives at this point are purely evil. He simply wants to continue on what he was doing before which is to get rid of the Emperor and make himself emperor. He only sees his son as a mechanism to further that ambition. It's his mad lust for power!

George Lucas Empire Strikes Back commentary.