Poll: Who should own the Falcon at the end of Episode 9?

[NIGHTBRINGER]

but dammit I cannot stand Jar Jar.

I wholeheartedly agree. But for every "Jar Jar" type element you have something that is quite the opposite, such as Darth Maul, Windu, Qui-Gon, etc. Also, the prequels contain my favourite lightsaber fights.

And then there is the whole pedophilia with anakin and Padme, that stuff was legit disturbing

The Anakin-Padme romance is the worst part of the prequels for me (even more so than Jar Jar, who is only really prevalent in Episode I). The scenes between the two of them in Episodes II & III are nauseatingly bad. We all remember the "I don't like sand" bit.

 

[Lizerd]

Yeah the prequels light saber fights were awesome, I do feel that the originals missed out on them a bit. I would actually pay a decent amount just to watch the lightsaber fights. However hands down the coolest lightsaber fights I have seen are the ones in the 2003 clone wars trilogy, seeing some stuff Grievous pulleys was awesome

Sucks that the new stuff really does not capture them as well, especially lacking all the acrobatics.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

I do feel that the originals missed out on them a bit.

Agreed. That is largely due to when they were filmed. Action sequences have gotten much better over the years. However, all is not lost...

Sucks that the new stuff really does not capture them as well, especially lacking all the acrobatics.

We haven't had a decent lightsaber fight in the sequel trilogy. The best lightsaber moment we've gotten in the Disney era was Vader slaughtering the rebels at the end of Rogue One... which was admittedly very cool. Everything else has been pretty sub par.

 

[Lizerd]

Now that remake of the original: that is what I call awesome. Remakes of the originals have so much potential to be like that one sequence. Thanks for showing that!

As for Vader massacring rebels: yeah that sequence was pretty cool, and probably one of the better parts of the prequels. Although it may have been improved as I doubt Vader could block EVERY shot

 

[ravagekitteh]

Agreed. That is largely due to when they were filmed. Action sequences have gotten much better over the years. However, all is not lost...

We haven't had a decent lightsaber fight in the sequel trilogy. The best lightsaber moment we've gotten in the Disney era was Vader slaughtering the rebels at the end of Rogue One... which was admittedly very cool. Everything else has been pretty sub par.

Now that remake of the original: that is what I call awesome. Remakes of the originals have so much potential to be like that one sequence. Thanks for showing that!

As for Vader massacring rebels: yeah that sequence was pretty cool, and probably one of the better parts of the prequels. Although it may have been improved as I doubt Vader could block EVERY shot

That doesn’t mean there aren’t still quality Lightsaber duels being officially released, as long as you know where to look...

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

People bitched because the movie was poorly done. Donald Glover's Lando portrayal was very well done for instance so there wasn't much compliant about that aspect, but overall the movie stunk (and deservedly lost money in the box office!!).

Don’t you mean stank? Pretty sure ‘stunk’ isn’t a word . 'Skunk' is a word, and probably an acceptable substitute anyway, but I think 'stank' is the correct past-tense version of 'stink'.

Lucas definitely did some questionable things, but he also created and gave us all the best things about Star Wars. At least under him it still felt like real Star Wars. At least under him there was no infusion of identity politics. At least under him, choices were made for story reasons as opposed to outside influences (even if some of the story decisions didn't pan out perfectly). At least under him no Star Wars movie lost money at the box office. At least under him, the PT felt like a thought out, planned and unified story.

Indeed - OK there was politics in the Prequels, but that was Star Wars politics... not Earth politics, and it also helped to cleverly tell the story of the rise of one of the greatest film villains ever. The ST politics is just there for the sake of it.

they still felt like Star Wars movies. I would trade away this new stuff for more prequel content in a heart beat.

Glad you agree with me here

Interestingly enough, they seemed to have botched Galaxy's Edge (the Disneyland Star Wars theme park), where attendance is abysmally low. Not sure if the trend will continue, but it warms my Sith heart!

Probably because it was predominantly themed around the Sequel Trilogy - if it was themed around the Prequels or Originals (or both), it might well have had far better attendance.

They did so before even seeing the movie.
Also many of them didn't watch it because they disliked TLJ, not the movie itself.

Have to agree here as well - the disappointment at Episode VIII certainly got more people boycotting Solo than there would have been otherwise. I imagine there would have been some who would have boycotted it anyway, but the divisiveness of Episode VIII added a lot of fuel to that fire.

As for Lucas: I disagree there a lot. Lucas specifically tailored the franchise toward selling toys.

Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. The Star Wars figures were much better in the Lucas era than they are now (apart from the 3.75” Black Series and Vintage Collection, but they’re generally difficult to find in Britain), probably because Lucas' Lucasfilm pressured Hasbro to put more effort into it. When the Disney takeover exerted its full force upon the Star Wars franchise in 2014, the quality of merchandise crashed.

Plus, heaps of toys were released during the OT era to get the youngsters excited, as in those days there were no games consoles or stuff like that - children had to use their imagination a lot more in those days, so what better way to get their support than help fuel those imaginations with Star Wars toys, so that they could be Obi-Wan or Han Solo in their mind's eye?

However, even with this toymaking frenzy back in the day, I found a video recently that talks about some toys that George Lucas, the very man that you accuse of tailoring the franchise to sell toys, didn't like and tried to stop the sale of:

These make even the Disney stuff look great.

As for "feels like Star Wars", that's pretty opinion based I guess. To me all the recent Star Wars movies captured the essence of Star Wars pretty well, even Rogue One (which did stray away from it, but that's OK for a spinoff).

Honestly to me Rogue One was the most faithful to Star Wars and strayed away the least. The Sequel Trilogy looks like a cheap knockoff (principally because they botched the idea of evolving the Star Wars galaxy properly over 30 years), while Rogue One helped to tie the Prequels and Originals together and plug that one plot-hole that has plagued Star Wars since Episode IV was first released.

There has to be a change in Star Wars, otherwise we will end up with a lot of rehashes like in the EU.

I agree, there has to be change in Star Wars, but obviously they didn't agree at Disney because we got the Farce Awakens - the biggest rehash of the lot.

He did follow the rule of cool, and even when it didn't quite work out, at least the intent was good.

Indeed - what would you rather have as bad guys? Rolling droids that have blaster machine guns on each arm and shield generators making them impervious to small-arms fire, or more cannon-fodder Stormtroopers in slightly different armour?

TFA was simply a rehash. It had good potential leading into episode VIII, but then they dropped the ball and tarnished the ST.

To be honest Episode VII already tarnished the ST by simply being a rehash that promoted extremist feminism and all manner of other stuff and took all the soul out of the franchise. OK, it did sell even more than Episode I, the previous record holder, but that was because it heavily rode on the hype of it being the first Star Wars film after 10 years (just as Episode I rode the hype of being the first Star Wars film after 17 years) and also because it relied on trying to recreate the 'magic' of OT 'nostalgia'.

On subsequent viewings, opinions have largely soured - the majority of people don't say 'Episode VII was good and VIII was awful', they say 'the Sequel Trilogy is awful'. If Episode VII was as good as people said on first viewing, it would have withstood the hate that arose after Episode VIII and the majority would have kept Episode VII out of the hate zone. Instead it has joined Episode VIII in that zone and both films are hated.

Prequel fans have benefited the most from the sequel trilogy because all the hate has been transferred over.

You're right - that's probably the one good thing about the ST. OT fanatics have realised what a really bad Star Wars film is.

 

[Aginor]

About Lightsaber duels:
Both the throne room fight in TLJ and the fight between Kylo and Rey/Finn in TFA are proper light saber fights that deserve a mention in my view.


About the toy thing: I think you misunderstood my intentions: I did not say it is a bad thing to tailor the franchise toward toys (that's what other do as well), I said that in response to @NIGHTBRINGER claiming that Lucas wanted the best for the story and didn't let out of universe decisions influence that, which is just not the case.

And yes, it got out of hand several times.


As for politics in the movies:
You could interpret parts of Leia's role in EP4 as exactly that. That's empowerment stuff right there. And it doesn't bother me one bit.
Same for the stuff Obi-Wan and Padme and Anakin say about democracy.
Not a bad thing either.

I am not happy about the extent it has in the new movies, but it takes a lot more than that to ruin a Star Wars movie. Which they are.

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

About Lightsaber duels:
Both the throne room fight in TLJ and the fight between Kylo and Rey/Finn in TFA are proper light saber fights that deserve a mention in my view.

The Throne Room fight was a fight between two characters with Lightsabers and eight with weapons that could parry Lightsabers but are not actually Lightsabers. Calling that a Lightsaber fight would be akin to calling the fight between Obi-Wan, Anakin and Grievous' Magnaguards a Lightsaber fight.

The fight in Episode VII was a Lightsaber fight, that's true, but it's pretty lax and basic compared to the fights in Episodes I-III. Even the fights in Episodes V and VI have more gusto and emotion. Also the fight in VII has the most ridiculously stupid ending, even though the fight between Kylo and Finn ended pretty much as it should do.

 

[Aginor]

Sorry for double post, editing sometimes doesn't work well on mobile browsers:

Edit: yay sniped so no double post!

extremist feminism

In TFA?? I think your extremism filter might be configured a tad too wide.
I'd almost agree with the droid in Solo, but nothing in any of the movies is strong enough to be comparable with real extremism.

 

[Aginor]

Calling that a Lightsaber fight would be akin to calling the fight between Obi-Wan, Anakin and Grievous' Magnaguards a Lightsaber fight.

I would call that a lightsaber fight, yes.
It follows the same rules. In contrast to fights in which the enemies are uncapable of parrying a lightsaber blow.

pretty lax and basic compared to the fights in Episodes I-III.

They are supposed to be.
The fights in Ep1-3, as cool as they undoubtedly are, contain many elements that are quite far away from realistic sword fights. TFA tried to get back to the more realistic style from the OT, in which the lightsabers are meant to have a weight.
It also fits the story well, as neither Finn nor Rey are trained to actually use a lightsaber. Kylo is visibly better, but still far from the real Jedi in the prequels or Luke (who at least had some lightsaber training by real Jedi).

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

In TFA?? I think your extremism filter might be configured a tad too wide.
I'd almost agree with the droid in Solo, but nothing in any of the movies is strong enough to be comparable with real extremism.

Not real extremism in a general sense, but extremist feminism, yes.

Feminism specifically promotes the empowerment of women (it's called 'feminism', not equalitism or something like that, for a reason). In cases where women's rights are simply brought up to become level with those of men, feminism can cover the same tenets as equality, but when women are empowered over men or men are underpowered to favour women, it becomes what I call extreme feminism. There are extremists in most movements, and feminism is no exception. In the sequel trilogy, Rey is empowered to be superior in lightsaber combat and in general personality to male characters in the film (she's portrayed as more intelligent than Finn or Poe and can beat Kylo without any formal training). Of course this could be just down to bad writing (poor development of Finn and Poe and poor dramatisation of the lightsaber fight), but the uber-feminist actions of a certain head of Lucasfilm make me think it's more extreme feminist propaganda than anything else.

I would call that a lightsaber fight, yes.
It follows the same rules. In contrast to fights in which the enemies are uncapable of parrying a lightsaber blow.

That's fair. Didn't realise you categorised these as lightsaber fights as well.

the more realistic style from the OT.

I'd say calling the OT style 'more realistic' is pretty debatable - Lightsabers in general are very different from swords from Earth as the blades themselves have no (or very little) mass or substance, because they are mostly energy, while Earth swords have always been made of some sort of metal, so their blades give a much greater contribution to weight, especially Medieval broadswords which have such massive blades that they required several weeks of training just to be able to lift them effectively. Considering then that the hilts of these weapons would be around the same weight (a Lightsaber would probably be a little more as it has a larger hilt, but certainly not much more as to justify the lost weight from the blade), a Lightsaber would certainly be much lighter to wield and easier to use to perform the acrobatic duels in Episodes I-III.

However, I can understand certain cases in the OT where the Lightsaber duels are slow:

• Vader is inhibited by the mechanical limbs of his suit.
• Obi-Wan is much older by the time of his fight in IV, and hasn't had much practice, except against Darth Maul if you believe the stuff in Rebels.
• In V, Luke is still quite inexperienced, and Vader wants to keep him alive in the fight as he realises Luke is his son and also wants to take him alive to Palpatine.
• In VI, it is the reverse most of the time - Luke wants to bring his father back to the light and tries to keep him alive. Maybe Vader is also trying to avoid killing Luke as well, although it's less clear in VI as he is also desperate to remain in Palpatine's favour.

The third case also applies to Rey and Finn (i.e. they are inexperienced), but none of them apply to Kylo, yet he still fights like an old man.

It also fits the story well, as neither Finn nor Rey are trained to actually use a lightsaber. Kylo is visibly better, but still far from the real Jedi in the prequels or Luke (who at least had some lightsaber training by real Jedi).

So if Kylo is visibly better, why does Rey win? Of course there is the idea that he is injured and has just fought and defeated one opponent, but considering that opponent wasn't even Force sensitive and that Kylo has the Force sensitivity of both Anakin and Leia in him, surely Kylo would have found Rey easy, especially as in most of that fight he was beating her? How come Rey then completely turns the tables just by hearing a few notes from the Force theme?

 

[ravagekitteh]

Feminism specifically promotes the empowerment of women (it's called 'feminism', not equalitism or something like that, for a reason). In cases where women's rights are simply brought up to become level with those of men, feminism can cover the same tenets as equality, but when women are empowered over men or men are underpowered to favour women, it becomes what I call extreme feminism. There are extremists in most movements, and feminism is no exception. In the sequel trilogy, Rey is empowered to be superior in lightsaber combat and in general personality to male characters in the film (she's portrayed as more intelligent than Finn or Poe and can beat Kylo without any formal training). Of course this could be just down to bad writing (poor development of Finn and Poe and poor dramatisation of the lightsaber fight), but the uber-feminist actions of a certain head of Lucasfilm make me think it's more extreme feminist propaganda than anything else.

Feminism is the empowerment of women to reach the same levels of men; describing it as anything else is a misuse of the term. As @Aginor said, the exact same “oh, women are presented as better than men” dates back to the OT - when Leia joined in on the rescue, she made Han and Luke seem lacking in comparison. Also, Finn’s whole ‘learning to be more confident in your abilities’ and Poe’s ‘learning to be less overconfident’ are just as common character arcs as Rey’s “learning to be at one with her abilities”. They may not have been written amazingly, but the gender of the characters doesn’t play a part in it I don’t think. Also, I’m intrigued as to what this “über feminism” is that Kathleen Kennedy has displayed - so far I see “the Force is female” and a few films with female leads instead of male ones. Not exactly extremism.

How come Rey then completely turns the tables just by hearing a few notes from the Force theme?

I’m afraid you underestimate the power of John Williams!

EDIT: Also, I like how much our conversation has to do with who should own the Falcon!

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

That doesn’t mean there aren’t still quality Lightsaber duels being officially released, as long as you know where to look...

Rest assured, I have seen all of those. It doesn't change the fact that we haven't seen a decent lightsaber vs. lightsaber fight in the movies. The Clone Wars is obviously a great show and Rebels is pretty good too. However, that doesn't exonerate the ST. How come fans on YouTube can produce better fights than big budget Disney owned Lucasfilm?

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

Don’t you mean stank? Pretty sure ‘stunk’ isn’t a word . 'Skunk' is a word, and probably an acceptable substitute anyway, but I think 'stank' is the correct past-tense version of 'stink'.

This reminds me of....

Indeed - OK there was politics in the Prequels, but that was Star Wars politics... not Earth politics, and it also helped to cleverly tell the story of the rise of one of the greatest film villains ever. The ST politics is just there for the sake of it.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with in-story politics. I have no issue with politics for the sake so story, but in the case of Disney SW, we're being fed political propaganda.

Probably because it was predominantly themed around the Sequel Trilogy - if it was themed around the Prequels or Originals (or both), it might well have had far better attendance.

That's my guess as well.

To be honest Episode VII already tarnished the ST by simply being a rehash that promoted extremist feminism and all manner of other stuff and took all the soul out of the franchise. OK, it did sell even more than Episode I, the previous record holder, but that was because it heavily rode on the hype of it being the first Star Wars film after 10 years (just as Episode I rode the hype of being the first Star Wars film after 17 years) and also because it relied on trying to recreate the 'magic' of OT 'nostalgia'.

Episode VII could have been good if VIII made good use of the characters and story lines it introduced. The problem (at least one of the problems) with the ST is that it is completely disjointed. There is no cohesive story because there is no pre-planning. Each director just goes in their own random direction. Obviously VII is a complete rehash of of IV, which does hurt it, but it did introduce potentially very interesting characters... which VIII did very little with.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

As for politics in the movies:
You could interpret parts of Leia's role in EP4 as exactly that. That's empowerment stuff right there. And it doesn't bother me one bit.
Same for the stuff Obi-Wan and Padme and Anakin say about democracy.
Not a bad thing either.

Definitely not the same thing! Nobody had an issue with that stuff. Those instances passed the "smell test", but the Disney stuff does not. Having a strong female character is a great thing, but the intent and execution matters.

The Throne Room fight was a fight between two characters with Lightsabers and eight with weapons that could parry Lightsabers but are not actually Lightsabers. Calling that a Lightsaber fight would be akin to calling the fight between Obi-Wan, Anakin and Grievous' Magnaguards a Lightsaber fight.

The fight in Episode VII was a Lightsaber fight, that's true, but it's pretty lax and basic compared to the fights in Episodes I-III. Even the fights in Episodes V and VI have more gusto and emotion. Also the fight in VII has the most ridiculously stupid ending, even though the fight between Kylo and Finn ended pretty much as it should do.

Exactly!!! Thank you, this saves me the effort of having to clarify all of this.

I would call that a lightsaber fight, yes.
It follows the same rules. In contrast to fights in which the enemies are uncapable of parrying a lightsaber blow.

That's fair. Didn't realise you categorised these as lightsaber fights as well.

I consider a lightsaber fight to be a lightsaber vs. lightsaber fight. In the same way that a gun fight would entail both sides having a gun(s).

However, I can understand certain cases in the OT where the Lightsaber duels are slow:

• Vader is inhibited by the mechanical limbs of his suit.
• Obi-Wan is much older by the time of his fight in IV, and hasn't had much practice, except against Darth Maul if you believe the stuff in Rebels.
• In V, Luke is still quite inexperienced, and Vader wants to keep him alive in the fight as he realises Luke is his son and also wants to take him alive to Palpatine.
• In VI, it is the reverse most of the time - Luke wants to bring his father back to the light and tries to keep him alive. Maybe Vader is also trying to avoid killing Luke as well, although it's less clear in VI as he is also desperate to remain in Palpatine's favour.

While all your points are valid, the real reason comes down to when the films were made. Fight sequences have become significantly better over the years. Disney has no excuses as they have the money, technology and technical expertise to do better. Maybe borrow a few of the Marvel staff!

Feminism is the empowerment of women to reach the same levels of men; describing it as anything else is a misuse of the term.

That is not an accurate representation of how feminism operates in 2019. That is what they tell you, but not how they choose to act or behave. Most people can see this clear as day, which is why most women don't identify as feminists (according to actual surveys, not personal opinions or feelings).

 

[Scalenex]

Lucas definitely did some questionable things.

George Lucas >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Kathleen Kennedy + Rian Jonhson

I am hard pressed to name a creative person whose work I like who is well rounded on all apsects of storytelling. James Cameron is one of my favorite contemporary directors because he surrounds himself with smart talented people.

When George Lucas made A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back he was a relative nobody and he was forced to take input from those around him. Return of the Jedi slipped slightly as George Lucas got a bigger head. The flaws of Episode 1-3 were present mostly because no one was on the set to tell him "no" The original trilogy, he got told no all the time.

If you look at Kathleen Kennedy's work portfolio before the Disney Star Wars she was always in a supporting role, helping creative people navigate the practical difficulties between their ideas and the big screen. She never really had creative input but she was good at bolstering the visions of other. It seems plausible that George Lucas liked her because she agreed with everything he said (George Lucas hates the word "no"). George Lucas believed that Kennedy was a kindred spirit who thought like he did and would carry on his legacy but George did not realize that she is just a very good social chameleon who said what he wanted to hear.

I don't know if Kathleen Kennedy is revealing her true desires and motiffs now or if she is simply parroting the values of her new peer group.


It's not George Lucas who falls into the yes-man trap. George R. Martin's books dipped in quality after he fired most of his editors (and the new editors were understandably more pliant because they didn't want to be fired.) Martin is a genius at characterization but needs some guidance on story structure to be at his best. JK Rowling got more creative control over The Crimes of Grindewald which also declined in quality. Rowling is a genius at world building but she needs help at pacing and consistency.


I would dearly love to be a published writer. I definitely need to write more often and for longer periods of time and stick with my pieces to completetion but I always try to get beta readers to help me with my natural flaws. I tend to write tangents with extraneous details that don't advance the plot and need to be removed and I very much dislike removing things I wrote, it feels like I'm going backwards. I also am not very good at writing romantic subplots or female characters which might be why I like writing about androgenous exogenic lizards.


My educated guess/observation is that Rian Johnson biggest problem as a writer is that he misses the forest for the trees. He has very little overarching plan and focuses on short term things that seem cool right now regardless if they fit in with whats already happened in the story and what is coming next. He also is somewhat antagonistic towards his audience. Not in the sense of "Boo hoo, the fans don't like my work, that means they are amoral misogynist" but in a more playful sense. He wants to prove that he is smarter than the audience by surprising them constantly and "subverting expectations."

A more partner based storytelling relationship is to meet expectations and guide them into new directions to be a collabertive vision with your audience and fans.

I think the best thing a writer (or in the case of RPGs, a GM) can hear is "I knew ______ was going to happen but didn't expect it to happen that way."

I hope Rian Johnson finishes the trilogy with minimal outside interference so someone can pick up the pieces at start over. The best writer on the planet cannot dig out of the hole of Rian Johnson.

Looking at the DC Universe. Justice League was not a dumpster fire per se but it was sub par and disappointing. Suicide Squad was a dumpster fire. DC had to take some figurative scalps and fire directors and producers and writers but the people who picked up half a dumpster fire couldn't fix it and they got fired too. Then the creatives who laid the foundations of Aquaman and Shazam in preproduction found themselves fired because of their tangental role in Justice League so other people got the credit for what went right.

Marhlect Hollywood execs...at least Spiderman Far From Home was good.

 

[Aginor]

as the blades themselves have no (or very little) mass or substance, because they are mostly energy,

I know that's how it is handled in the prequels, but originally it wasn't!
Lightsabers were supposed to be heavy, mostly two handed swords! the style of swordsmanship was based on long sword combat, and one of the most frequent directions during fights (according to Mark Hamill) was to remember that those things are supposed to be heavy, while the props really weren't.

That's what I meant with realistic. Lightsabers were supposed to be handled like medieval swords. It was an artistic decision. Well, and as @NIGHTBRINGER correctly pointed out, there were other reasons as well, as the movies were made in the 1970s.

In the prequels they made a different decision and reversed that to the weightless blades that are swung around like batons.

In the sequels they reverted back to the old style.

There are arguments for and against both styles. I kinda like the idea that in-universe we can explain it by the real Jedi using the force to be stronger and faster, while the not so great force users have their problems with that.

As for Kylo vs Rey:
We had that discussion already, but TLDR:
The force was with her, and luck as well. Hadn't Kylo been seriously wounded, and Finn heroically rescued her when Kylo basically one-hit her with the force push, Kylo would easily have killed her. He is so obviously better than her in that scene despite being handicapped.

Btw Kylo is probably not half as good with the lightsaber than he would like everyone to think he is. But that's another topic.

Bonus: real world parallels!
There are a few interesting stories from medieval soldiers who point out that a relatively inexperienced, but strong, recklessly and unconventionally acting swordsman can get a seasoned duelist into real trouble sometimes. The same applies here as well.

I have a lot of problems with TFA and TLJ as well, but that's the least of them.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

Bonus: real world parallels!
There are a few interesting stories from medieval soldiers who point out that a relatively inexperienced, but strong, recklessly and unconventionally acting swordsman can get a seasoned duelist into real trouble sometimes. The same applies here as well.

I think that stops working when one person is trained to harness and use the force while the other, although potentially very gifted, is a compete noob.

I know that's how it is handled in the prequels, but originally it wasn't!
Lightsabers were supposed to be heavy, mostly two handed swords! the style of swordsmanship was based on long sword combat, and one of the most frequent directions during fights (according to Mark Hamill) was to remember that those things are supposed to be heavy, while the props really weren't.

That's what I meant with realistic. Lightsabers were supposed to be handled like medieval swords. It was an artistic decision. Well, and as @NIGHTBRINGER correctly pointed out, there were other reasons as well, as the movies were made in the 1970s.

In the prequels they made a different decision and reversed that to the weightless blades that are swung around like batons.

But which fights were more entertaining? The prequels have the best lightsaber fights.

 

[Aginor]

I think that stops working when one person is trained to harness and use the force while the other, although potentially very gifted, is a compete noob.

We don't exactly know how the Force works.
It could be possible that it can work intuitively up to a certain degree.

But which fights were more entertaining? The prequels have the best lightsaber fight

I think we all agree that they have entertaining fights, but I do think that the OT/ST (lol sounds like an imperial walker) style can make great fights, too! The Luke vs Vader fights are certainly not boring, especially the one in Ep6.
What I like is that they look strenuous and intense, while some parts of the PT fights look like juggling.

The prequels of course have more fights to choose from, and all the flashy new technology stuff. There are lightsaber carrying dudes everywhere.
But then they have also some pretty weird/bad stuff.

An example is the one part of the Mustafar fight where Anakin and Obi-Wan just stand statically in front of each other, doing useless moulinettes. Just cringe-worthy.

If properly choreographed both can work well, and I do think that the fighting in Star Wars is generally pretty well choreographed. I have seen way worse stuff in movies, even in expensive ones.

 

[Scalenex]

The evil mouse won't stop until every single beloved franchise is dead.

Seriously, does Disney even have a PR department anymore?