Lucas has said that to date, we have only seen an untrained boy, an old man and a half-man-half-cyborg ... he says the prequels will show us the REAL sabre style. Nick Gillard, weapons choreographer, says he has combined kendo, fencing, tennis and almost anything else to develop his ‘Jedi Style’ which is blindingly fast. His tightly designed fights will feature Force-enhanced reflexes which will allow the fighter to throw up the ONLY possible defence to a given attack, and only just in time! These will be exciting fights!
But what can we say about the fighters from what we’ve seen so far?
Darth Maul
Maul uses a unique weapon. His long hilted lightsabre provides both advantage and disadvantage.
The long hilt provides considerable reach – which in itself is of limited value against a skilled opponent, but the longer hilt allows for greater leverage – which has its uses.
Its very length however is a hindrance and obliges him to employ mostly diagonal and horizontal strikes. We see a ‘quick draw’ attack from the weapons resting place on his left hip employed against Qui-Gon Jinn in the teaser trailer ... it is a KESA-GIRI type upward diagonal slash – a fast, powerful and devastating technique. Jinn ducks the attack just in time.
The surprise however, is that Maul’s staff has a blade at EACH end. When fully activated he is armed with a bizarre hafted lightstaff. The double-sabre provides awesome abilities in parry and riposte (defence and counter attack) as the defending swipe brings the second blade up in counter attack in one motion ... HOWEVER as lightsabre blades are sharp all over, it is a considerable menace to himself! As a result, many of the traditional hafted-weapon techniques are NOT available to him – he cannot shift his grip down the shaft, he cannot allow the shaft to rest alongside his body!
He maintains a horizontal stance with this weapon in the teaser trailer footage and in the www.starwars.com rehearsal footage, the dominance of horizontal actions is confirmed.
Maul must employ considerable strength and VERY athletic, almost balletic, body movements to parry attacks without allowing his weapons ‘butt-end’ to be deflected into his own body. He is seen in the rehearsal footage to use dance-like spins and whirls to skip away from his opponents. Maul would require quite a lot of free space to use this ‘staff-mode’ effectively. In confined spaces, he should revert to the single blade which allows SOME vertical motions.
Expect to see this staff break into TWO ‘normal’ sabres at some stage (perhaps in prequel#2) for a new level of surprise, and for him to fight two-handed!
Qui-Gon Jinn
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Kenobi reminded Yoda in TESB that he had been ‘reckless’ in his youth, and indeed he WAS!
The young Kenobi, seen in the teaser trailer and the rehearsal footage (or his stand-in) tends to use angular motions, both of the sabre and of his body. He leaps and frolics in a skillfull, but overly showy manner.
Young gifted swordsmen often seem this way – they are able to take advantage of their youthful vigour, speed and flexibility to make up for what their style lacks in control. Kenobi is seem twirling his sabre like a cheerleader – a useless and showy gesture – when he and Jinn leap a chasm to confront Maul,
Kenobi just HAS to flourish his jump with a sommersault. Kenobi will have many close shaves in his fights – only sheer reaction speed will save him time & time again.
Young swordsmen also have a lesson to learn – they must learn to replace their speed with SKILL or their career ends at 30 (or even earlier). The body slows with age, and it must be the MIND that wins fights, not fancy moves.
We are lucky to have seen the OLD Kenobi in action as well. A man in his 60’s (at least), ‘Ben’ Kenobi uses a totally different style. He ‘fights for centre’ – a style that uses far less physical strength and motion, but is very deadly. The opponent must be careful as the old man is attuned to their every move and will rip them a new orifice with a lightning fast blow.
To watch Kenobi & Vader face-off was much like watching 70-90 year old Japanese kendo masters fight ... a battle of minds. They are playing chess – with swords. Attitude and counter-attitude are put down until an opening appears.
Kenobi’s ‘straight’ style is more than capable of frustrating the larger and more effusive ‘diagonal’ powerplay from Vader. Ben could hold him off all day long. Every ‘wild’ move risks instant retaliation from the well-settled centre position.
HOWEVER: there are still some hints of the younger extravert in there ... old Kenobi employs a couple of twirls and spins, but its clear he isn’t up to the performance levels of his youth. As the fight progresses, he gets tired, and is content to hold ground. He lacks the strength to get a clear shot at the
massive Vader – unless he can goad Vader into an unwise ‘big’ attack (as he tries to do!)
Kenobi comes full circle. He was truly a master of his weapon – but to the very end, he lacked the majesty, poise and technical excellence of Qui-Gon Jinn.
Darth Vader
At this stage,we are unable to comment on the style of Anakin Skywalker- but we know he was taught by the ‘rash’ Kenobi, and was able to give his mentor one hell of a fight! I expect his style will be not dissimilar to the young Kenobi’s – but as he will be ten years younger, he will provide the aging Kenobi with some rude surprises, as the younger man will be even faster and more flexible.
After his fall and resurrection, Lord Darth Vader has some problems to contend with. His body is a mess. His spine is broken at the neck, several limbs are cybernetic, and he is permanently encased in a cruelly heavy portable iron-lung.
He knows he has lost the physical edge – so his suit in enhanced with plates of super-dense armour. Whilst a sabre blade can cut through even this armour, it cannot do so without effort. Dense metals have a heat-dissipating conductivity, and a supply of ‘stray’ electrons that mean it takes longer for the sabre to ‘chew’ through. The armour is able to protect against lighter blows, as is seen in the Bespin duel.
The large helmet and stiff shoulder plates mean that Vader is unable to easily raise his sabre over his head – so he employs techniques similar to pre-1600 battlefield samurai (who had similar encumbrances). He raises his sword to the side of his head, over his shoulder rather than his head, and launches mostly
downward diagonal attacks. He is immensely strong, and tends to bludgeon his opponents weapon aside rather than use any finesse.
Vader does use some graceful one-handed moves in the opening of his first duel with his son, but it must be remembered that he is dealing with a half-trained boy, is hoping to ‘psych him out’ and of course, is aiming to capture not kill. Note how Vader catches Luke’s sword on his own and PUSHES him to the ground – how he spins Luke’s sabre out of his grasp. These are POWER techniques.
Note, that Vader has to fall back on the Force, and fling pieces of scenery at Luke. He lacks the skill and
fine control with which to disarm and capture his prey alive. He is a killing machine, not a master.
Vader fights like a bulldozer – huge, strong, and tough. He is more intimidating than mobile however, but fortunately for him, there are no longer any Qui-Gon Jinn’s around to show him up.
Luke Skywalker
Luke receives a tiny fragment of instruction from Ben Kenobi, but is otherwise left to his own means. Yoda seems more concerned with his ‘soul’ than his weapons skills, (though in the film-novelization he has Luke doing sabre exercises, unseen in the film). Yoda seems to believe that a ‘true heart’ is more important, and relies on his faith that the Force will guide Luke’s hands.
As a result, Luke’s style is uncontrolled. It is fast, and not uninspired, but utterly untutored and downright clumsy at times. He misses numerous opportunities to strike, and wastes far too much effort in ‘agricultural’ blocking moves that should be spent in efficient riposte counter-attacks. Only his
incredible Force-inspired reaction speed and leaping-about save him.
His style-of-no-style however, is eventually a match for the brute force of his father. His moves are unpredictably wild, and when driven by hatred and berserk fury, he is able to simply bludgeon his father into submission. There is nothing pretty about his final duel – it is as Lucas has called it – an untrained boy fighting a cripple.
Against a ‘real’ Jedi (or Sith), Luke wouldn’t last two seconds. His clumsy footwork, wild swings and exaggerated movements would give Darth Maul far too many openings! Luke would have to spend all his effort Force-jumping away from that deadly lightstaff!
EDITOR'S NOTE: Robert B K Brown has studied the Japanese Martial Arts of Kendo and Iai-do for over 12 years. He urges you to study UNDER A QUALIFIED KENDO and/or IAIDO Sensei before you even think about acting out any fight sequence you see in an SW movie, neither Robert nor PHARR OUT! are liable for any injury that may occur if you attempt to stage these fights WITHOUT training (excuse our discliamer but it's gotta get in here.).
"Episode One: Jedi Duel" art ©1999 Bishop 333, used with permission of the artist.
All character and film names, etc. ©, TM 1999 Lucasfilm Ltd. This page is not endorsed by Lucasfilm Ltd. or 20th Century Fox, it-like the rest of this site-is for entertainment purposes only. Content of this page is ©1999 Robert B K Brown, Bishop 333, and/or www.starwars. com/Lucasfilm Ltd.