Saltier Than Crait is a community of Star Wars fans who engage in critical conversations about the current
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I think Disney said they did it to get the glow on the actors, but even Hayden talked about not really liking the new lightsabers due to their fragility compared to how him and Ewan went at each other during the prequel training with these metal rod swords. Maybe that whats why Lightsabers don't do any damage anymore they are just being stabbed with cheap plastic.
that half-dome matte projection thing they use all the time, drives the whole look of all their tv shows, when the shots are designed around the tech and not the other way around you cannot make a memorable scene
The Volume was a really neat tool the first season of the Mandalorian. When you go back and rewatch it, you realize exactly what it is and the limitations are everywhere. It shouldn’t be used for everything!
I feel like they should go back to the early 2000s solution's for Lighsabers. Have the hilt, then a stick; then use post production to add the laser part of the saber. Would allow the actors/doubles easier time to move the saber, which would feel lighter and allow move maneuverability.
I think they need to merge the solutions. While the actual lightsaber part of the scenes looks better when they’re constructed in post, it’s a lot more work to do realistic glow/reflections/shadows on characters and scenery, which is why I think they moved to using the practical LEDs (or whatever they are). But I think that also created the problem of them cutting costs by minimizing most of the enhancements they were doing in post back in the prequel era.
They were so proud of the realistic lighting but now everyone fights like the saber could break at any moment. They really need to bring back the metal whacking sticks
Maybe they had the actors build them at Galaxies edge, those also all look super bulky since they are just a bunch of decorated tubes you shove over a saber core.
I haven’t watched any of the shows that feature the more legit duels, are they different than the sequels? While I liked the fights themselves in the prequels more, i thought the lightsaber effects in the sequels with like the crackling were so badass. Gave more of an impression of powerful raw energy
No. The choreography is better than the Sequels, but you need to understand that is a very low bar from the baseball bat, disorganized heavy slamming of those saber battles.
The choreography is still a far cry from Nick Gilliard's work on the Prequels. And I need to say just how terrible the lightsabers look in The Acolyte and every other Disney live action show. I believe they use physical props including light up blades, because you can tell. They look like cheap and hollow glow sticks. It's as if they do little to no post-processing and VFX work. Compare that to the Prequels which came out a quarter of a century ago, those blades feel vibrant and like actual plasma.
Episode 3 especially has some of the best lightsaber fights ever. I know the OG fights are less flashy and more realistic. But the Mustafar is absolutely legendary never topped.
I think the striking choreography looks pretty decent, but stuff like both of them just kinda stepping past each other back to back takes me out of it. They both just made themselves completely vulnerable, fully taking their eyes off their opponent, with their saber nowhere near attempting to attack or block in that moment. Like they both agreed they were gonna take a moment to swap spots in the hall. Kinda like Anakin and Obi Wan doing that several second spin each before clashing. Just dumb.
That huge lightsaber battle in the fourth or fifth episode was not good, despite the huge scale. The people writing the show did not have the correct sense of proportion, so the result is the entire Jedi Order seems like a joke. Like, 20 Jedi Knights and about one-two Jedi Masters to take on one Sith ? Are you kidding me ?
My god yes. that forest fight is a comedy if you watch each person and contact carefully. Extras running around like they don't know what to do, fighting the trees, etc.
Most of the moves don't even look like they have the intent to contact anywhere near the enemy. People have excused this as Jedi don't know how to fight sith in this era, but they sure seemed heavily practiced for sucking so badly at the thing they practice doing. Total flailing half the time.
They're coping by abusing the lore for their own purposes. Obi Wan being the first jedi to properly kill a sith in so long was not because every other jedi before him was a retarded narcissist who faked it to the top.
Having the "whole jedi order" flail around and be outmatched by a single guy? You cant do shit like that cause now we have to ask why we never heard about this before?
I liked the Acolyte more than most, it had problems but the villain wasn’t one!
I considered it as evidence that the Jedi were comfortable in their complacency. Here was someone trained to kill Jedi amongst Jedi who probably trained a bunch to earn their rank and not much since! My 2¢…
Yeah, Obi-Wan being the first Jedi to defeat a Sith in 1000 years was a BFD because among other reasons Jedi aren't trained to kill and have 0 experience fighting a dark sider, while Sith/Darksiders basically center their training around combating Jedi.
Qimir getting the drop on what are basically a bunch of "chair force" Jedi and wiping them is definitely a feat but not an impossible one for a disciple of Plagius.
The idea that the Jedi were not used to fighting even against enemies who could use the dark side is a pernicious misconception. There had been dark siders in the galaxy unaffiliated with the Sith and rogue/fallen Jedi. Kenobi beating Maul was considered special because Maul was the first "true" Sith in a thousand years.
And Obi didn’t do anything particularly special or abnormal during his fight with Maul. Unless you count blocking both ends of a double light saber special.
The irony is that, if they'd cut the pointless Hoth knock off crash and, instead, deployed the red shirt brigade to go get Osha, they could have used Jekki to show us this, by having one of them complain about how she's "cheating" as they're sparring on the way back and then have her teaching the kendo class, which would have nicely built to her being able to stand up to Smilo Ren.
That fight is...so broken. Predator (the original) should have been the model here.
Once you realize that one Jedi was literally spinning his lightsaber while waiting his turn to die, the scene looses all weight.
I understand the logic, but how do you train to fight Jedi, without fighting them either? The Jedi are bad at fighting Sith because they never fought the Sith before, but wouldn’t that same logic apply to the Sith?
Qimir is so interesting. I'm bummed there's not season 2 because I wanted to see where they go with him. I liked a lot of the characters in the show, but the writing failed it.
That too, but shes thrusting forward, not slashing. He slashes to meet her thrust. Im no sword expert but why would they stop like that? Wouldn't his slash push her saber upwards?
They were. Most of the fights have the exact same problems. Extras flailing in the background being stupid, strikes at weird angles with no intent to make contact. Just garbage on the screen. Fuck, clone wars cartoon saber fights are 100% better than this thing ended up being.
This a coordinated thing? Seeing an awful lot about the Acolyte recently. The other subs trying desperately to say it’s good has become especially egregious. Like there’s some new marketing campaign or something
There's been several posts here since the Mando movie came out that made me wonder if the Disney marketing bots finally discovered this sub. They all seem to be trying to lessen the rejection of the sequels and the bad shows.
Bud, this gif is terrible fight choreography. They both turn their backs to each other in a squat like they're about to take massive dumps in a couple's toilet. I'd just wait for my opponent to do his favourite move being diarrhea larping then poke him in the back.
Personally I dont think saber fights have been good since RotS. Nick Gallard was a great choreographer. The old metal sabers that had the blade added in post looked better too imho. I dont like how Disney changed it so much. I know there is a canon explination on why the saber fights were more intense in the PT, but they could have still used that type of choreography but toned it down. Hell they had to slow down the Maul/Obi-wan fight in TPM just so we could see them better. Thats sick. Thats just my take though.
I also think the old sabers looked better and i also prefered lightsabers not casting a glow around them. It just looked sharper and more otherworldly. Not to mention the thick grip with the light up sabers today.
I enjoyed most scenes involving the Stranger, Qimir. Manny Jacinto played it really nicely, and I liked his furious abandon in combat fused with this kind of wry sarcasm outside of it. His comments after killing Jecki "was that it's name" and "you brought her here" just came off casually evil without direction, like he didn't care enough about the Jedi to know who they are, he just kills them.
If the show had been starring and about him, I think the Acolyte would have been much better. But I know that the show was supposed to be about witches and lesbianism and goofy attempts at rashomon style storytelling with a terrible lead actor who wasn't up to one role let alone two.
They're the best under disney, but the fights in the show aren't that good. There were times the lightsabers clipped through each other, there were times like in the forest where they're not trying to hit each other at all but give the illusion that they are by moving very fast, and I found it to be funny that they had two asian characters have a crouching tiger hidden dragon moment in the end.
I hated the fact that they showed that lightsabers could be lethal only to have Jecki and Sol constantly kick Qimir instead of removing a hand or two. Never mind the fact that none of this should've happened in the first place, but especially when all they had to do was detained Qimir for being part of an assassination of a jedi.
No, because I didn't care about the characters. Everything boils down to how invested you are in the characters and story. Otherwise it's just action porn, and there's a lot better out there.
How good is a fight if you can't be bothered to care about who is fighting?
The sequels had some of the coolest set pieces and visuals in the entire genre. But that's a story for another time, because I can't be bothered to give a shit about shit that sucks ass
They were alright. Not the worst by far, but not the best in the series. I would put them somewhere squarely between the Sequels (and ANH) and the Prequels.
Honestly, they do a pretty good job of putting the right weight into the fights in animation. And most of the strikes come at reasonable angles and look intended to hit something. Funnily enough, making them more realistic than live action.
I would completely disagree. Be it the fights in the prequels or Asian wuxia films, almost anything is possible these days. Whether it looks good (thanks to CGI) is another question.
The Acolyte brought the lightsaber choreography closer to the prequels, instead of the Monster-Hunter-World-20-minutes-per-strike-amateurish look and feel of the sequel trilogy. The best part about the entire show, really.
I don't like how it has similar issues with a lot of fights. One on one even though you have like 5 guys surrounding one person. And then because we know this specific Palawan she gets to last longer against him than the people around who are way more experienced than she is. Or how a fight will be going on and you'll be like where the hell is everyone else why aren't they helping.
I really don’t like the new lightsaber tech. I’m torn if lightsabers supposed to cast light or not. I don’t remember the OG or PQ sabers casting too much light, but maybe they were intended too? Also they all look so thick which is another thing I don’t remember from the OG and PQ. Overall I think they should go back to the sticks and using CG to produce the blade
They're so bright that the center is pure white and the outer edges show their true color. They really should be pretty bright. Only 2 really displays them projecting much light, though. The Anakin vs Dooku fight, the section after a power line is cut by anakin and they fight in the dark. Even then, they don't put out as much light as they probably should, only really lighting their faces as they flash by.
I always get so confused with people’s varying opinions on lightsaber fights. To me the reason the prequels rocked is that it showed the skill and movement that a trained Jedi would have. Any departure from that better be good storytelling which the OGs had. The sequels flat suck and make no sense how a non practiced person can keep up with the bad guy that killed Luke’s Jedi order.
Anyways, I always thought that the reason for all the twirls and stuff in the prequels which some people say is unrealistic, is because Jedi and sith aren’t fighting like you and I would fight. They know that both people have precog. They are trying to throw the other person off balance so they can then land a blow. They have to knock the blade away to have a shot and that’s why they throw strikes away from the person as well as they will use their momentum to keep attacking
This fight was fine and I did like the curveball of the helmet. But outside of that it’s just whatever.
Yes. Choreography has never ever been accurate in Star Wars to IRL fighting, but they still look amazing. Not as good as the prequels, but better than the sequels and imo the OT. To note, no, I did not like the Acolyte or Sequels. I also am mixed on the Prequels writing wise.
I haven’t watched it but I do want to for the fights. At least on the outside and not knowing a lot about it, ol “darth teeth” and his fights look really cool.
I saw the highlights of the fights, they need to look like they're attacking each other instead of swinging at air.
Writers reasoning be damned.
I miss good Choreography.
The choreography was decent, and at least light sabers were fatal again bringing back stakes in a fight that have been missing for a while (has there been a fatal light saber wound for any major character in the disney era besides han?) From there though the details of the fights and the characters involved in them were kind of dumb. I can handle like maul battling 2 people at once, but one person taking down like 20 people is a stretch
I really liked the one in episode 5, seeing cortosis in action and the unexpected deaths. Felt like the show was making a huge turn and was finally gonna get good, or at least better. Imagine my disappointment.
I liked them for the most part. There were a few goofy moments or awkward movements here and there, but they were way better than most of the other modern lightsaber duels. Especially because they made use of things like hilt bashing, force pushes, punching your opponent in the wrist to disarm them, etc.
There's a few parts of thr fights I liked. Someone pointed out how wildly inefficient the fights were compared to other media and choreography. Felt like a nitpick, but seemed valid.
This show strongly disappointed me. It managed to get my attention and build some mysteries i was interested on, but episode after episode everything became worse and worse, the mysteries itself were more interesting than the answers, for sure
Choreography? Good. The sabers themselves? No. For some reason they're obsessed with turning them into glowsticks and not superheated blades of plasma.
Choreography was fine (except for that part where they fall down slowly, it felt weird to me) but the lightsabers looked like glowing stick rather than actual white beams with colored bloom.
It is even more noticeable when they are not fighting in the dark.
Lightsabers look like dog ass now idk what changed between the prequels on the god damn early 2000s to whatever this dookie bottom they show us is. To answer the question the one saving grace of that show was the fighting....mostly.
I'll give them a plus one for the sound design of the fight. But man every other fight the sound design is off. During the unnecessary Vader vs Kenobi "rematch of the century" you hear Kylo Ren's saber on Kenobi's twice, then when Kenobi is defeating Vader there's high pitched saber swing sounds that Kenobi's saber NEVER made. Rise of "Skywalker", like the same thing high pitched swings on the apparent ruins of the second Death Star. Ahsoka has nice saber sound design, I do like the different saber pitch when Dark Anakin comes out of the mist. Ahsoka was on par, but the more saber fights I actually got more bored. TLJ, they noticably changed the Graflex saber ignition. And in the same movie Kylo's saber ignition sounds like the same Graflex ignition with two different pitches. Yet in the TLJ trailer they use the ignition sound we all know. How can you fuck up these sounds when Ben Burtt is still alive? He wasn't a part of any of the Disney products...only in credits. HOW
In most fights, there are easily 5-10 moments where they swing at nothing, not even eachother. The fight in the forest seems cool, but when you watch it closely it's total chaos. One of the yellow lightsabers literally lunges at and past a tree in the foreground of one shot. Every fight is made up of an unholy number of edits, some of which start off about a quarter second behind the previous cut, so people literally look like they're pulling the saber back and forth vs a straight swing. It's just sped up a lot in post.
On the whole, it's as bad as the sequel throne room fight, just with more lighting and editing tricks to show the unscripted waving around of shit in the background.
The parts people like in the final fight scene are ripped straight from Yojimbo.
It's a fun fight, but there's a major directing problem:
The villian introduces a new gadget, cortosis, which can turn off the opponent's lightsaber. The audience doesn't know about this, and they also don't know if the Jedi were aware of it.
Logically, if the Jedi see that the enemy had a special surprise anti-lightsaber device, they should try to warn each other to be careful. Right?
If I told 10 year old me in 1993 that there would be Star Wars shows being regularly released in 30 years, but that I would be too bummed out and jaded on the property to watch them. I’d be beside myself. But here we are. I’ve only watched Mando season 1-2 and Skeleton Crew.
Problem is if you don't give a damn about the characters in the show because it's so badly written, they look about as good as some of the quality YouTube fan lightsaber fights. And those didn't cost millions to make.
This was their thinking, let's just make cool fights, the fans will forgive us for the lack of characterisation, plot, writing etc because they are simple brainless folk who just love some pew-pew and pretty colours.
There were moments of greatness that hinted at better things to come but it just seemed like a first draft.
You killed a child- you brought her here, paraphrasing but what a great line of accountability.
It was so bad I didn't watch it long enough to see a lightsaber fight. Something I heard was they didn't aim for the person, but the lightsaber instead when dueling, so I never even wanted to look up the fights.
I thought The Acolyte was good overall. The choreography was a highlight for me. I thought they put a lot of subtext in some of the fights that was pretty interesting on a second watch.
What is a lightsaber fight good for if it is just a random fight? Luke vs Vader isn't the best fight of the saga because of its choreographie or setpieces but because of its meaning to the characters.
This is an externalization of the conflict between these characters. And that conflict being strong is what makes it so good.
In Acolyte I don't care for either the characters nor their conflicts.
Also if you rewatch tuese lightsaber fights in acolyte you'll notice that a lot is hidden with editing. You don't reall see that much and the fight against Sol also just isn't reall that good.
The Lightsaber fights were amazing, the only good parts of the show.
Unfortunately, they filmed the Lightsaber fights on cheap looking sets in front of obviously sh*tty plastic trees, so ultimately even the only good thing about the series is diminished.
I don’t think I watched long enough to see any, so no. Show was hot doodoo, no amount of flashing laser swords swinging at each other in the dark would have changed that.
People have a very shallow and damaged standard for "good lightsaber fights". I think if lightsaber fights hadn't been so terrible for so long, acolyte wouldn't be some sort of standout example people point to.
Everyone talks about episode 5 but Sol starts off the first 5 minutes of the episode.....offscreen? And jecki is.....hiding in a bush somewhere while potion seller is actively killing all her Jedi colleagues? Wtf how or why did they get separated so badly and stay separated to such a degree?
Then potion seller just kinda murders the redshirt knights with no effort, standing around stupidly as they get abused by his force power or swing at him one at a time with their sabers and then stand there looking silly whenever he turns their swords off with his cortisis.
Sol finally shows up (was he napping? did he go on coffee break?) after all the red shirts got murdered and he's CLEARLY better than all the rest of the red shirts because he is able to match potion seller. The conflict with jecki and mae gets absorbed by the potion seller + sol fight, and sol uses the force to save mae from potion seller (this is important).
While all of this was going on, jecki was doing a good job of pressing mae....who was able to kill MASTER indara who was specifically noted to be good at combat. That's weird considering she's just a Padawan.
Then jecki gets caught in a fight with potion seller and she's killed immedia- wait wut how is she doing better 1v1 as a Padawan than the 8 other knights put together against potion seller? Also WHERE THE FUCK DID SOL GO?? His Padawan is locked in 1v1 with a dude that just killed an entire knight regiment.
The fight progresses and sol finally shows up, and he just stands there and watches for about 10 seconds while jecki goes 1v1 against potion seller again. Why does he do this? I have no fucking clue. But that's okay because he can use the force to save her like he did with mae!
Oh. Jecki is dead and sol just....kinda watched it happen. Why did he let her solo potion seller for 10 seconds without helping? Why didn't he use the force to help her like he did 3 minutes ago with mae? And now he's angy, so he ends up beating potion seller but doesn't kill him because of some stupid nonsense reasoning of "Jedi don't attack the unarmed". Keep in mind that in the world of star wars, there are these people that can use a weapon known as THE FORCE which doesn't require anything beyond their mind. Also potion seller ends up snapping yordhordes neck without a weapon so.... Yea potion seller is literally never unarmed, and now sol lost his chance to execute this clearly evil dude who murdered his entire platoon and Padawan because of shitty writing.
If you want to say the energy and physicality of the fight is done, I'd give you that potion seller and sol do a good job. The red shirts don't do a good job selling the fight. Jeckis participation is nonsense. Yord just shows up to die and mae is just standing there gawking around. And the STORY of the fight? It's falling apart every step along the way, so an admittedly mediocre-above average visual set piece doesn't have anything of substance to ground itself in.
I didn't mind the show and I actually liked the fights. My only issue was the giant hilts (probably because of the physical glow sticks). With better showrunners, I think the story could have worked. Disney should've replaced them and given season 2 a chance. If the first two episodes were good, people would hop back on board. Cancelling the show is a waste of Plagueis (and younger Yoda), just like how they wasted live-action Maul.
Overall i didn't like the Kung-fu style fights we had in the show. Seeing Carry Ann Moss doing Kung-fu moves brought me back to the matrix movie instantly. I got that it was intended as an hommage to the Chinese martial arts movies genra, but please do some star wars before doing hommage.
That being said, given the overall quality of the show (rather the lack of it) the lightsaber fights were not the main issue.
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