I love Sam Jackson. However, I think he’s dead wrong about the lightsaber duels in TFA.
Samuel Jackson thinks the Star Wars: The Force Awakens actors need to “go to lightsaber fight school.”
Mace Windu himself – the man with the purple lightsaber seemed taken aback by the untrained, and rather raw choreography of the lightsaber fights in TFA.
“It’s done in the spirit of the Star Wars films,” he said, obviously holding back. “It’s adventuresome, it’s exciting in a way. I think the kids need to go to lightsaber fight school but that’s just me, they got time to get better.”
Yes, the lightsaber fights in TFA are raw, untrained and unrefined.
That’s because they should be raw, untrained and unrefined.
The simple fact of the matter is in the Galaxy of The Force Awakens, there are no lightsaber fight schools. The Jedi are gone from the universe, all but forgotten. Spoilers to follow…
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Keep in mind that when Finn and Rey face Kylo, neither of them have ever been trained in lightsaber combat. The only way they were able to even have a chance at surviving the fight is because Chewie had taken a direct shot at Ren’s gut with the Bowcaster of Doom.
In an interview with Empire Magazine last Month, J.J. Abrams addressed the issue of Lightsaber combat in TFA:
When you look at Star Wars and Empire, they are very different lightsaber battles, but for me they felt more powerful because they were not quite as slick [as the prequels]. I was hoping to go for something much more primitive, aggressive and rougher, a throwback to the kind of heart-stopping lightsaber fights I remembered being so enthralled by as a kid.
At least for me, the lightsaber fight at the end of TFA was indeed heartstopping. While not as elegant and high-speed and the Lightsaber battles of the Prequels, the moment where Rey calls the Skywalker saber to her hand gives me chills almost every time I see it. That’s the emotional pull at the root of the lightsaber combat in TFA.
Lightsaber fights should make sense.
Ridley grabs the ligthsaber not like a newbie would grab a sword, but she actually adopts Anakin’s stance. Which made me think that she had had some training. Though, to be honest, Boyega did the same, for some reason. Then she proceeds using it like it was a knife, which is even worse than most newbies would do. Okay, she definitely didn’t have any training. No idea why she had assumed that stance, but whatever. When she assumes attack position in the last part of the fight, she exaggerates so much her movements it makes it look like she’s wielding a hammer instead of a weightless weapon, and leaves so many openings that it really makes it difficult to believe that she was able to defeat Kylo Ren.
Compare that do Boyega, who actually tried to wield it like a sword, and actually showed less openings.
She also did a similar thing when holding the blaster and closed the wrong eye to aim.
I love Daisy, but girl is more newbie than a newbie with weapons. Which makes no sense why she never missed a shot, or way she was able to defeat Ren. Even an injured person could’ve easily disarmed her.
The prequels’ lisghtaber fights were ridiculous looking. TFA lightsaber fights just don’t make any damn sense.