, 12 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
I had no idea Angelica Pickles was a pro stunt man now, but I'm glad she's still following her dream of telling babies to stop having fun.
So, I watched the video and one of the things Crack Stuntman has to say about it is that in comparison to the droid battle from the beginning of TPM (where CGI droids were added in post wherever the light sabers were swung), it wasn't as effortlessly flowing...
He specifically points out the fact that Daisy Ridley as Rey, who is fighting human stuntmen portraying her opponents, has to look where she's swinging, and they have to dance around to make sure they hit their marks.
Whereas the Jedi in TPM are waving their swords around on an empty set against opponents who will be filled in later, so no one has to coordinate to hit marks and they don't have to pause or look where their opponents are coming from.
So to be clear, his complaint is that a Jedi Master fighting a bunch of literally disposable mooks at the beginning of a movie trilogy looks like he's having an easier time than an untrained apprentice fighting elite guards at a climactic midpoint of one.
I mean, this is the thing. Most Star Wars light saber battles have been throwbacks to the Errol Flynn era of stage combat: clang, clang, clang... everybody's swinging their sword to hit the other sword.

The battle where he praises the swordplay in particular is the one where the targets were added by animators later, because all the human-on-human fights are (likely deliberately, given the pulpy vibe) obviously stage fighting.
And the Throne Room fight is 100% more of that. No, it's 10000% more of that. With the Darth Maul fight having been 1000% more of that. In both cases, it's taking the stagefight/swordplay tropes of Star Wars and dialing it up an order of magnitude.
The reason the throne room battle keeps getting remixed to different songs is... it really works as a music video. Because it is dynamic and stylized. And yeah, it's more "grounded" (as in there's no acrobatics and less force manipulation) than some of the other Star Wars fights.
But that does a good job of portraying the desperation of the situation. You get the sense that Rey and Ren are really rocked back on their heels, pressed into desperate straits.
It's storytelling, not using a bunch of stunt choreography to try to forensically recreate an actual battle between two space wizards and a dead space wizard's praetorian guard.
They make decisions in editing and choreography based on the idea that the audience attention will be focused mostly on the main characters. If you instead watch their faceless red opponents like a hawk, parts of the scene will look weird, sure.
Missing some Tweet in this thread?
You can try to force a refresh.

Like this thread? Get email updates or save it to PDF!

Subscribe to Alexandra Erin
Profile picture

Get real-time email alerts when new unrolls are available from this author!

This content may be removed anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!