Petition for The Old Republic Fight Scene Autopsies.

What makes a good sword fight in media: The story tricks me into believing that the characters are as good as the story says they are, and that the characters are trying to attain the goal that the story says they are.

What makes a good sword/lightsaber fight scene? Well, having a competent stunt coordinator helps, for one...

"I never see anyone start a fight this way, testing each other and finding their reach..." Yes you do, Luke versus Vader Empire Strikes Back.

I love how coordinated two experienced fencers seem to be. "For example if you present your blade" and after two dings they end in a beautiful bind position as if they just practiced the choreography. No words, just swords.

Ryan vs dorkman was peak youtube

Corridor made one of the best light saber duels to this day with their „To the death“ short.

ALSO, how you FILM a Fight Scene is VERY important! The proper placement of the camera can make an off target attack appear to be a kill shot. In the theatrical context, fights are designed to appear more “real” from the angle and perspective of the audience, if you were standing on stage, you suddenly see their strikes aren’t as close as they appear.

This definitely deserves a compressed version on Shadlands channel.

What makes a good weapon-based fight scene? People who are experienced in the craft giving you assistance, or just hiring one of them to perform the movements. There's a reason why Darth Maul and his fight scenes are considered LEGENDARY. There's a reason why Dooku's fighting style looks so damned good. People who know what they're doing will always make things look better.

Man almost like that guy nick gallard knew what he was doing

I think the best purpose of using an overswing is to show they're either untrained or heavily exhausted. While exhausted it's common to make exaggerated moves

The original lightsaber fight between Obi Wan and Darth Vader in "A New Hope", some people say it was boring. But it was the most realistic lightsaber duel in Star Wars

Dragons. Dragons make a good fight scene. Disclaimer: only when competent people are in charge of the dragons.

There is a really good sword fight in jet lis Fearless. Jet Li and his opponent anthony delongis had little time to rehearse so they improvised most of it, and alot of the time actually tried to hit eachother. Great fight.

Anyone who has seen any of the videos from Adorea Olomouc knows for a fact that realistic and even historical fight scenes are absolutely possible.

Honestly, a lot of the issue also lies with how willing to train the actors are. If you slogged through Ahsoka, you could see a physical difference in how much more skilled Hayden Christiansen was compared to Rosario Dawson. He legitimately looked like he was struggling to slow down to not bowl her over. Compared to the extremely athletic fights of the prequels where the actors worked their butts off and were often trained martial artists (Ray Park being the most well-known example), the Disney stuff, with a few exceptions, tends to look like untrained amateur theater kids with little to no actual fighting experience.

its almost like the prequels stunt coordinator was trained to teach the choreography and the actors trained how to use their blades and still make it look flashy.

I'm honestly happy the algorithm recommended this video to me. I never get to see the newest videos when they come out and this time it showed right when I opened youtube, straight out of the oven. Super good content Shad!

I feel like there several considerations on good sword fight within the context of a story. It doesn't always need to be the best fight ever and this is general advice for what I feel is missing in a lot of Hollywood productions. 1) Characterisation - How a character fights needs to tell the audience something. If you have a character who relies on their strength than show them maybe swinging a larger weapon with larger effort. Putting some real effort into each swing, trying to over power the opponent. That tells me something about them. If you have a character who is selfish or doesn't want to die, have them pushing other people in the way. If you have a character who is overly arrogant, have them yawn as they're swinging or swinging the weapon lazily as if they don't view X character as a threat. If a character doesn't want to kill, have them pierce their sword in the shoulder or legs (anywhere non lethal) and the opposite for a character who wants X character dead, they better be trying to kill. Don't be afraid to display how your character is feeling. 2) Stakes - Stakes should more often than determine length of fight (not always but be careful, long fights drain audiences and short fights against big bad can be a let down, annoying the audience). if it's a fight for the end of the world, your hero character better be putting every ounce of their soul into the fight. They could be getting desperate, angry, scared or whatever emotion you want and using every skill or technique they've been shown to know. You can display emotions within a fight without using a single words. I know Disney hates that but you can do it. If it's just random grunt no5, yeah sure make it short but at least make the fight mean something to the story whether that is plot, character or world building wise. 3) Various techniques and skills - Giving the hero a problem to overcome in a fight is always good. A hero who wins 100& of their match-ups without real effort is boring. If you have a character with daggers versus a character plated in armour, make the dagger guy have to tire them out or use weak points in the armour. Maybe it's a powered armour that has a fuel source, whatever just make each fight fun, immersive and impactful. In a world like Star wars or general fantasy you have access to the force or "magic" you can get real creative with your fights.

dude Shad is so agile wtf

What makes a good fight above all else is consistency. That includes the movement, characters power scaling, the person's abilities, the environment and the universe's world building. It doesn't always have to be in the realm of realism all the time. This is why so many enjoy anime battles even though they're not realistic all the time. What makes them good and any fight enjoyable is consistency. It has to at least be or convincingly convey the illusion consistency. If it has that people are able to buy into it. And even more enjoy it. As it allows people to immerse themselves into even a fantastical scenario.

princess bride. greatest sword duel of all time.

A “come on I can do this” nervous jitter/exhale after an early good engagement would be a good addition to a fight scene

Well done, Shad and Tyranth!

3:05 This reminds me of a particular scene in the later seasons of Star Wars Rebels that almost seems anticlimactic, but there's something special about those few seconds

If there is a story being told through the action or even a series of problems and solutions like a real fight accompanied by good choreo then youve achieved your goal to an extent

RULE OF COOL: A Jedi has a special sense that knows where the opponent saber is at all times, which means he can spin. It doesn’t mean everyone can spin at all times like a competition between toddlers to see who falls down first

Man, I forgot about Ryan vs Dorkman. Those were amazing fights.

Shad in medieval style armor reading from a digital tablet. There has to be a context somehow where a scene like this could be put in a movie.

What’s interesting about starwars is that there are 7 separate lightsabers forms. It would be interesting to see Shad adapt each of these forms using realistic swordplay. (Unless that’s what this video is, I’m typing at the 30 second mark lol.)

That clip of you guys hitting eachother with light sabers is peak "We are idiots. But professional idiots!" 😂

My list would be: - stakes/consequences - emotional connection with the chatacters and therefore the outcome - choreography (can be realistic but depending on the tone of the show doesn't have to. but it has to fit.) Edit: There's also the consideration of safety. Not so much with lightsabres but with other weapons. And many actors have little to no fighting experience. We aren't in the times any more where it wasn't unusual that many actors had years of experience of at least stage fencing. I find "Do not overswin!" funny when I remember your cutting tests. Same with "Hold a guard position". Yes, they are cutting tests but why not avoid forming bad habits? Also makes control more important for the test. That strange and somewhat useless "guard" position was also used in Ghost of Tsushima. No idea if they got it from some samurai movie. I think a reverse grip is used in some knife fighting styles. You can't only do reverse cuts with a lightsabre, you could also do side cuts. Just saying.

Oh, regarding Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon vs Maul, there's actually more to it than just the hits being a lot closer. That fight was filmed with high-speed cameras because Liam Neeson, Ewan McGreggor and Ray Park had rehearsed that scene to the point where they could go through it faster than an audience would find believable. A lot of the awkward telegraphing and pre-dodging in that fight scene was actually due to the footage being slowed down combined with each actor already knowing the choreography by heart. And it works watsonianly as well, as you could argue that in-setting it's a display of force precognition.

Ironically, the place I’m most likely to see “realistically short” duels in movies are Japanese samurai movies where the sword duels are more like quick draw cowboy duels in Westerns than more Hollywood style sword fights. Makes sense given how much cross pollination there was between the two genres.

Nick Gilliard

The one time that really sticks out as cool with a character targeting the blade was in Lord of the Rings Aragorn used a big slash to knock the blade of an Orc out of the way then continued the charge with his next attack killing the Orc

Hey, did you hear about the Star Wars fanatic who's been stealing autograph books and photo albums from other fans at conventions? They call him the fan-tome menace.

Nick gilliard is still alive and I think you can find him on various KZfaq vids

Not being made by Disney.

This is why I always come back to Shad if I’m thinking of doing lightsaber choreography

Fights should be part of the story telling. Character flaws or growth should be shown/exploited

As a karate guy, spinning back kicks and spinning back fists are definitely useful. They're usually better for sparring than actual combat or self defense, but they're still good techniques to have in your arsenal. You usually want to do a spinning back kick when your opponent is retreating, or if he commits to a strike. For example, a common kick combo you learn is a round house kick into a spinning back kick. If your first kick lands, or your opponent dodges, he's moving backwards, so you don't have to worry about presenting your back, and the round house goes fairly naturally into the spinning back kick. Another thing we do in karate is ipon kumite, or one step fighting. They are counters to presented attacks. The eighth ipon kumite is a spinning back kick in response to a stepping reverse punch. The leg on the side the punch is coming steps ~180° around the front, which moves your head/body out of the way of the attack, and then the stationary leg kicks. Oddly enough, we rarely did any spinning back fists in karate. We learned a few kata (fighting forms) with them, but we never actually drilled any techniques or combos with spinning back fists.

Hello Shad, long time subscriber and follower (on my personal account). On the topic of fan made lightsaber fights, I used a lot of your advice from your fight scene autopsy series to choreograph the lightsaber fight in my fan film Star Wars: A Test of Patience here on my profile. I'd be honored for you to check it out and see where I took influence from your past advice.

Nick Gillard is sorely missed in the SW stunt team nowadays. He was the stunt coordinator and fight choreographer for the SW prequels! Ewan and Hayden practiced with him for over two years I think, before filming started on RotS? Ray Park was already a trained martial artist, and Liam Neeson trained in Irish longsword before he became an actor... It's a damned shame GL had Qui-Gon Jinn killed off at the end of TPM

A great and really well acted sword fight is from the movie Stardust, search for "stardust sword fight". In the scene, Tristan is fighting against Septimus' body which is being controlled like a puppet. The choreography is hilarious and the swordplay meets all the criteria here for looking realistic.

Though you're from Australia Brother Shad, Happy 4th of July, I enjoyed the video. I also hope to see a video on July 24th, a special day for those of us in the faith. Deadly? Disney can't even stand the sight of blood much less someone in character dying on screen. Bottom line, the lightsaber fighting scenes by Disney look like drunk rednecks with glow sticks playing a bat fight at a rave.

Have you ever seen those old Ryan vs Dorkman lightsaber duels? Those were the best

So in Episode VI, when Luke is slamming down on Vader’s lightsaber before cutting off the hand, does that count as a specific example of purposely aiming for the blade?

Ok, you really should do Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon fight scene autopsy at this point. That's too iconic to not be made

As a random person with no experience, the only thing I slightly disagree when someone dodges when they don't need to. I would dodge if someone swings a sword at me from basic instinct even if it would have missed, but then again, that doesn't mean every uneeded dodge is reasonable

It is genuinely great to have professionals breaking this stuff down, instead of just randos hating. Truly great video

Shad can you PLEASE do a break down of the deleted scenes from the prequels the Anakin, Dooku fight and the Palpatine Windu fight

I think what so, so many people forget about lethal combat is that the aim of the game is not to kill your opponent. The aim is to not get yourself killed, usually by downing your opponent in some way. Which is why so often they don't do fights right in media. You don't even need experience in combat to know this. I learned it from fighting games! All they need to do is get someone who has decent knowledge of armed combat to check the shots

I'm not a star wars expert, but to me the Obi One guard looks like it's saying to the opponent: "you don't know if I'm gonna use the light saber with my right hand, or the force with my left hand"... So, in universe, I can se it working

31:56 the thing I love about classic Kenobi pose is when he does it in Rebel Maul duel only for him to change it to a proper guard to show that he's grown and is no longer young passionate duelist he used to be. Then he proceeds to demolish Maul in 2 seconds. Brilliant scene.

Love the video! Many good points. In regards to the static binds: Lore (written pre-Disney, post OG trilogy) describes the lightsaber as laser sword-like but is only fully mastered by an extension of the "force" of the user. The lightsaber has both attraction and repulsion specifically against other lightsabers depending on the intent of the force users. In total immersion of the world-building, it is supposed to be a mental/magic/force battle between two wizards with magic sticks regardless of them being referenced as Knights. This excuses many of the static binds as a bid for mental control/leverage of force power. It also disregards the major need for a crossguard (minimal sliding), as well as why the lightsabers bounce off of eachother like in the Obi/Anakin fight. Finally, it gives incentive to aim for the other lightsaber (in specific situations) rather than the opponent themself. In theory, hitting the other lightsaber and winning the mental chess match provides better openings in the conflict as well as an oppening for a non-lethal submission. Totally unrealistic in a real world sword fight. Acceptable to an extent in a wizard battle with telekinesis and losely defined technology wands.

I watched a sword expert talk about the sword fight from The Princess Bride. He said that the swords they used were waaay lighter than a read fighting blade would be which allowed them to go a lot faster than they would in a real fight but other than that, it was excellently done with surprisingly real technique.

As a writer, in your fight scenes... you need to be thinking about the CHARACTERS intent and experience. Characters reveal themselves in the way they choose to fight. Watch the movie The One for a great example of this.

keepem coming brutha

always love to see a new shadiversity vid!

Mugen vs Afro Samurai by Team Red Pro is also has some good fight choreo. They tried to emulate the fighting style of both characters as close to the lore as possible. e.g. Afro Samurai uses a katana one handed, but uses the scabbard to block and parry, while Mugen does a breakdancing-type of fighting style to show his unpredictability. They also masterfully choreographed this by doing blocks/binds with the Geta slippers and Mugen's handguard.

Love the content. Love the energy. Love the actual martial arts. It’s amazing how a few blokes with a camera and a carnival castle can actually have more creativity in their pretend combat then the most successful studio in human history. Keep up the good work, boys! This is the best Star Wars content we will get

You rip it apart but its return of the Sith is the best we have seen to date and its not even close !

That breakdown of the anakin, obe one fight you did showed how amazing they did. The father type relationship and their powers explain most of the things like flourishing and spining.

I have found two uses for spins: 1) fighting multiple opponents - Spin to threaten a big area and get out of encirclement 2) using a big shield - spin while blocking simultaneously and attack from a normally impossible angle

I think that you guys would enjoy Obi-Wan vs Maul from Star Wars Rebels. It only lasts like 2-3 seconds but it does so much of what you talked about. They went through several different poses, shifting from fighting style to fighting style and trying to feel out their opponents and how they should approach the fight. Then when the fight does happen it’s over in three moves. Add on top of that, it’s an explicit callback to their first duel. Obi-Wan uses Qui Gon’s stance to lure Maul into being careless. Maul then tries using the exact same move to end Obi-Wan that he used against Qui Gon. Obi-Wan recognizes this and counterattacks appropriately.

I would says that a key thing in a fight is, what is each of their objectives? Delay, kill, talk, subdue. That will inform their tactics.

On point one: If you're 'trusting the force', then you might not have that 'feeling out' session before getting started.

I’m convinced Disney use dance choreography for the fight scene instead of stage combat professionals and then just put a lightsaber in their hand, they’re not looking at what the blade does they’re looking at what the body does.

You can't argue with people who try to defend this stuff. Found one guy on twitter who kept saying prequels fights were terrible compered to Acolyte and ofc his response was that he's a swords master himself so he doesn't need some grifter youtubers explaining to him how a true sword fight should look like. And ofc his dad also worked at Nintendo.

I was checking the old republic fights and they do like almost everything mentioned in the video including the omnicirectional stuff and yknow, actually using the force for stuff. I vote for autopsy of those fights as well!

Bringing up the topic of binds. There actually is an in-lore explanation for this (before anyone points this out yes, I know it's just a result of choreography choices and this is a little retrospective but hear me out) lightsabers actually are magnetically drawn to one another. The best example of this is with the darksaber, specifically in rebels where Kanan and Sabine train. Kanan mentions that the blades will be drawn to one another and you see this with the electrical currents arcing between the blades. Now Kanan at this point had never actually fought the darksaber, he didn't even know it existed until a few days ago so how would he know this? It happens with regular lightsabers as well. So what causes this? To my knowledge it is the magnetic containment field around the blade that allows it to hold its shape, its similar to how the lightwhip works as well. When these magnetic fields make contact, then you get what is essentially two magnets making contact and that makes it more difficult to move your blade along or around your opponents.

Yall got an awesome groove going with the new rapport together. I very much enjoyed this discussion.

Also, al lot of SW fans do NOT know is Jedi aren't taught to kill. They're taught to disarm. Head and centre torso strikes are forbidden because it leads to death. Prime example of this is the fight between Count Dooku and Obi-Wan in Episode 2 just before Anakin lost his arm. In that scene Obi-Wan was cut on both arm and leg. That is how jedi were taught. The swing Obi-Wan did in Episode 1 which cut Darth Mail in half was a forbidden strike and done out of anger, something Maul wasn't expecting on both accounts and led to his defeat.

Even though they weren't the best choreographed, one of the things that made the original trilogy's fight scenes so tense was how much manoeuvring and feinting they did versus actual attacking. You really felt they were trying to get the measure of each other, and that they were desperate not to make a mistake or give away their intentions, because to do so would be fatal. Compare that to the non-stop spinning overswings of the Disney stuff and it's just so banal and wearisome to watch, just meaningless action with no sense of danger or a chance for the audience to breathe. Knowing how to pace your action is crucial to maintaining the tension level of a fight scene. More isn't always better.

This was one of the best videos to date. Bravo 👏.

I've used to be in a club that used real blunt swords and other weapons to learn how to use them right and use touch rules to be more or less safe and as our skills grew. Our duals sometimes lasted several minutes just because of the skills and the right moves. But even with those skills when ever I match with someone really good techniques and skills, my own skills did not last very long at all. A full on fight between two people who can really use a sword, usually ends either when someone makes a mistake and then the fight is over nearly instantly, but if that don't happen the fight can last for several minutes with both sides works hard to get in a good hit. If people really dig into using sword and some of the really old techniques that still exist, you will soon begin to understand that a fight with weapons is all about the right moment. Up against someone not as good as myself, all I needed to end the fight was their first move, so the fight was over within a second or two. But up against someone with a similar level of skill that changes a lot because there even a tiny hole in your defensive technique might end the fight, and you need to create an opening, both side will be hunting for an opening or using techniques to create an opening and such fights, might take a long time to end if both side is really focused and if they are about at the same skill level. Personally I usually don't like seeing sword fights because there's always openings that the other side would take advantage of, but they don't. Or they fight style is so open that anyone with a tiny bit of skill would be able to kill them within seconds. So most of it looks fake to me, because I know how to really fight with a sword. Learning enough control to use touch rules, just makes you very aware that it would be so easy to just change the angle a tiny bit too really hurt someone or kill them as using swords are dangerous, lightsabers are even worse as a single hit will end the fight and there is usually so many opening, bad moves and wasted moves that it's almost discussing. Oh, and please someone send this video link to someone making that show to really fix the issue because it was honestly horrible to see.

Disney doesn't understand that Sci Fi fans tend to be very logical and reality-based. Imagine the opposite... a deep, romantic love story run by people who are not in touch with their feelings. How's that gonna turn out?

Thanks for mentioning The Old Republic cinematics. They're really well done. My favorite one "Hope", manages to pull off non-force users vs sith.

This is great dor writing. Thanks guys!

You actually touched on a massive point here with the unarmed combat. Especially with shad mentioning the spinning backfist and turning side kick.

You both are awesome! Great info and attention to detail

regarding saber binds, in Rebels they mention the blades are drawn together, so there’s a stickiness to them that I think lets the cinematic close-up bind be less egregious. This may also be why reverse edge cuts are not used because sliding the blade would be like pulling velcro. None of this has been reasonably explained, but I always thought that line in Rebels did a ton of heavy lifting to help smooth over some of the sins. I don’t necessarily like it, but it’s a handy retcon to explain the bind encounters. The problem is lightsaber on saber physics has never been adequately explained in canon (so far as I’m aware) and so what you typically get is whatever the production team feels like it should be for any given story. If we learned a lot more about how the beams of plasma naturally link up and bind themselves but are repelled by dueling force powers, etc. that could be a fantastical dynamic that would make lightsaber battles unique and more interesting, but we’ve never gotten that sort of explanation, really.

A really neat move for Jedi that might actually work is in stead of lifting the leg to dodge the attack the Jedi could jump towards their enemy over the lightsaber flat backwards like a high jumper thrusting their lightsaber into their enemy’s chest. I can easily see that happening with Jedi and it would look dope kinda like the jump stab from Troy but the Jedi’s back is facing the ground.

Good sword fight scene is made when Disney is not involved

The only thing I could argue for the chaoticness in some fights, is that a Sith is usually over-confident with their ability & power, therefore I could see them engage aggressively without the cautiousness a real fight would have. I just wish for some good choreography with that in mind! I do love me some Sith 🤣

You know what I want? I want Shad to do a fight autopsy of The Count of Monte Cristo. I feel like the sword work in that is quite good.

Two distinguished men talking about their high-tech sticks

Someone correct me if im wrong, but one of the reason we almost never 2 lightsabers slide off one another is because the energy blade attract one another like magnet? We do see bind constanly, but almost never blades sliding along one another (unless they have a lot of momentum before touching).

One I would love to bring up is Full Metal Daemon Muramasa. While it is a visual novel and as such, things are only delivered through text, it goes hard for its fight scenes. It goes into the pros and cons of various action and why characters do what they do. Also helps that it is a great story in general.

Your Acolyte fight scene autopsy video did not disappoint, well done!

Excellent video. Thank you very much. Regarding the low number of thrusts in lightsabre fights specifically, one thing you have to remember is that Jedi are NOT like traditional swordsmen. The vast majority of a Jedi's enemies are guys shooting blasters at them, NOT guys fighting with other close-range weapons. As such, most of their focus is on deflecting blaster bolts. Thrusts would be useless for that purpose so they don't get into the habit of using them.

I want to address something that I think you guys missed out on, while it may have been interesting for "historical" maneuvers with a Lightsaber, a Lightsaber is an entirely new weapon that would have entirely new tactics (Which still follow the major rules that you talked about). While a rapier or longsword may be examples of similar weapons, there is no weapon on earth that has true omni-directional "effortless" cutting and piercing with a perfectly rigid blade. A lightsaber can cut without force, if it makes contact with any material except another lightsaber, it will simply go through it, especially if it's organic. Ontop of that, the lightsaber itself is light, extremely light, almost to the point where it won't really have inertia outside of your arm, and the center of mass would be in the handle somewhere, not where you would find it on a traditional sword. So, fanciful flourishes and techniques which wouldn't carry a lot of force or control in the real world work perfectly fine for a lightsaber because any contact, no matter how slight, is deadly. The other main thing to be taken into account is the force. I think it's criminally underutilized in Star Wars fights. Imagine the advantage you can have if you apply even a little force to your opponent to bring them towards you into your lightsaber swing. Other tactics that make no sense in the real world that could be utilized such as, actually allowing your weapon to leave your hand, because you can use the force to change the direction of your weapon in mid air. A Jedi with two lightsabers could literally use one like a dancing sword out of DnD. Or they can be thrown and recalled to pose a ranged threat. The force can also be used to break your opponents guard, or be used to guard yourself. I would think that the properties of a lightsaber would make a style about shifting from large sweeping movements to snapping to quick agile guards, parrys, and strikes is actually extremely effective, and it comes down to the fact that the blade itself has no weight, is perfectly rigid no matter what, and can cut with even the slightest contact.

Those are good points and all, but you're missing a key aspect of it. For you to make a realistic (by that I mean a good, engaging one) sword fight you have to have competent people working on your movie, something that Disney clearly don't have.

Watching 2 men touch tips has never been this fun :)

Funny, the first part is what Vader and Obi Wan did in Episode One. There was periods if feeling each other up for committed strikes. The fight were they had to be cautious cus the sabers are fragile could be considered more real that successive lightsaber fights.

I'm humbly asking for a Rhomphaia short.

A great example of capitalizing on an over swing is in the 13th Warrior. When the blonde dude duels the red head, the end of that fight is cool.

calling the prequels "baseball bat fighting" is an affront to baseball bat fighting.