• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Darth Vader vs.-------

Immolatus

Captain
Captain
I was looking at the prequel with my kids and my daughter stated that she doesn't think Darth Vader could defeat Count Dooku in a light saber fight. The more I thought about it I realized that Darth Vader couldn't really defeat anyone in the prequel trilogy. agree?
 
I think I heard Lucas saying that the original trilogy were about old men on their last gasps and punk kids, which is why he made it look like every one was on speed in the prequels.

Counter argument.

The mental powers of Vader and Obi Wan might have been so extreme that they were like chess grand masters planing 80 moves ahead looking for their endgame which is why they were not really bothering with their light sabers much.

Meanwhile...

Vader wasn't trying to kill Luke. You can't convert a corpse.
 
Once Vader got put in the suit his physical abilities were greatly diminished. But he was still powerful, and it's not like it mattered by that point anyway since most of the Jedi were wiped out. But that's probably one reason the Emperor wanted Luke, he could have an apprentice that didn't require a life support suit to stay alive.

Really I think the OT Vader would've had a hard time with a lot of the Jedi in the prequels, just from what we see on screen. Not to mention Sith like Darth Maul.
 
his robotic bits would be more powerful and be able to suffer more damage.

now, you may say that he wouldn't be able to move freely because he's basically really really really sun burnt... But he's probably on something that make PCP look like pez to deal with the pain.

There was a comic book miniseries about Vader hunting down the last of the Jedi after the purge.
 
According to the EU Vader can and has killed a clone of Darth Maul.

Course, if I had a penny for every time Darth Maul was brought back from the dead and then killed, I could... turn them in at the bank for a couple dollars.
 
We can talk about special FX and how they've been able to "enhance" Jedi prowess through technology...

I always felt that the lightsaber duels were supposed to be very much like traditional fencing, with protocol and style to match. A gentlemen's game if you will..

But of course, with the advent of new technology, the Jedis' powers and prowess could finally be realized.. Had they had the same abilities in the 70's, Sir Alec would have been bouncing left and right with swift gracefullness, just like Christopher Lee.
 
I think I heard Lucas saying that the original trilogy were about old men on their last gasps and punk kids, which is why he made it look like every one was on speed in the prequels.

Pretty sure that's just more of his revisionism. According to the Making Of books, the lightsabers were originally invisioned as being much more heavy and powerful. Which is why Vader, Obi-Wan and Luke wield them like really heavy swords.

Unfortunately Lucas ditched that idea in the prequels, and had the new Jedi moving so fast that it makes the original characters look incredibly slow and feeble in comparison.... which to me is just one more reason to be annoyed at the prequels.
 
I do subscribe to the idea that Vader was past his prime by the time of Episode IV (being in the suit may have aged him beyond his years). But...I do think Vader was a total bad ass in the decade after Episode III and that he could beat every Jedi he came across.
 
In his current state at the end of the prequels, likely not as he was severely weakened and needed time to recover, however, we can perhaps surmise that his robotics allowed him to make up for that, and maybe even in effect enhance beyond his natural capabilities.
 
I think the "suit slowing him down" thing is more Lucas revisionist b.s. that he's been conjuring up since the SEs.

why should cybernetics slow him down? You'd think it would enhance his fighting abilities, make him stronger. General Grievous was a cyborg and look how he fought with lightsabers, and he didn't even have the Force power that Vader did.


and yes, the lightsaber duels from the PT vs OT are jarringly dissimilar. By ROTJ, Luke at least should be able to fight like Obi-Wan or Anakin in the prequels.

I like the "heavy swords" idea, Lucas should have stuck with it.
 
We can talk about special FX and how they've been able to "enhance" Jedi prowess through technology...

I always felt that the lightsaber duels were supposed to be very much like traditional fencing, with protocol and style to match. A gentlemen's game if you will..

But of course, with the advent of new technology, the Jedis' powers and prowess could finally be realized.. Had they had the same abilities in the 70's, Sir Alec would have been bouncing left and right with swift gracefullness, just like Christopher Lee.

To be honest i'm awaiting the day when someone decides the Original Trilogy fights should be altered to reflect a more energetic fighting style and a cgi Alec Guinness starts bouncing around like prequel Yoda on crack. I'm pretty sure the rapidly spinning corpse of Sir Alec could be harnessed to provide a new renewable source of energy for the world.
 
The notion that Vader's power (of the Force, not the robot parts) would be reduced by having his body mass reduced is idiotic. ESB already established that a little guy like Yoda can be more powerful than a huge guy, because the Force comes from moral purity or something like that.

That's the reason that Yoda was depicted as a little guy - to make the point that the Force isn't something where size matters. Luke (and the audience) was expecting Yoda to turn out to be some huge, strapping warrior. (This point may be lost on people who didn't see the movie in its original release, who watched the first part of the movie not knowing who this mysterious Yoda would turn out to be.)

Yoda being small was a reminder to the audience not to be so literal minded. Lucas apparently forgot this lesson when he introduced the boneheaded literalism of "midichlorians." :rolleyes:

The notion that lightsabers were "heavy" makes no sense - why would they ever have been any heavier than their hilts? The problem with how the fighting was depicted in the prequels was that they went overboard. When the characters are flipping around like grasshoppers, you lose the sense of danger and effort in the fights. It's fine if they can use telekinesis to do acrobatics that no normal person could, but there also needs to be some sense of weightiness just to convey danger.
 
Yeah I remember reading a long time ago that the OT lightsabers were supposed to be heavy, I guess they generated a lot of energy and were hard to control - I think it was more due to the fact of the technology of the time, so Lucas had to be careful on how he filmed the lightsaber duels. The OT lightsabers are more like broadswords, where the prequels are more like Samurai swords. Having said that I still prefer the ESB duel to any other duel in the Star Wars saga.
 
Which Vader? The one from ANH who shuffles like his lightsaber is a broad sword, or the one in ESB who seems to be a skilled, elegant, and effortless fencer manipulating his environment with telekinesis? Or the one from ROTJ who got his ass kicked when his unskilled son had a temper tantrum?
 
Yeah I remember reading a long time ago that the OT lightsabers were supposed to be heavy, I guess they generated a lot of energy and were hard to control - I think it was more due to the fact of the technology of the time, so Lucas had to be careful on how he filmed the lightsaber duels. The OT lightsabers are more like broadswords, where the prequels are more like Samurai swords. Having said that I still prefer the ESB duel to any other duel in the Star Wars saga.

I remember reading that the explanation for lightsabers was that they had some weird gyroscopic property that made them hard to train with, except by people with special coordination, AKA Jedis.

That always made me look at them with special awe, like they weren't just a laser sword anyone could use. Then the NT made them look like a baby could pick them up.
 
Yeah I remember reading a long time ago that the OT lightsabers were supposed to be heavy, I guess they generated a lot of energy and were hard to control - I think it was more due to the fact of the technology of the time, so Lucas had to be careful on how he filmed the lightsaber duels. The OT lightsabers are more like broadswords, where the prequels are more like Samurai swords. Having said that I still prefer the ESB duel to any other duel in the Star Wars saga.

Yeah that's the impression I got as well-- that there was a whole lot of power and energy behind them, and you really had to work hard to control them.

I won't deny the more kinetic style in the prequels wasn't cool as hell to watch, but I also think it made the lightsabers seem a lot less powerful and majestic in the process. They might as well have been giant glowsticks, considering how much people liked to spin and whip them around. Lol
 
ESB already established that a little guy like Yoda can be more powerful than a huge guy, because the Force comes from moral purity or something like that.

Or impurity.

Temis the Vorta said:
Yoda being small was a reminder to the audience not to be so literal minded. Lucas apparently forgot this lesson when he introduced the boneheaded literalism of "midichlorians."

Lucas supposedly once suggested in the ANH era that there were aliens with higher midichlorian counts than humans who had a greater understanding of the Force. In light of this, little green man Yoda looks like a variation on this concept, as a character later established to have the second-highest midichlorian count on record.

Not everyone can use the Force. This is something that literally holds true in-universe, and midichlorians are the science underlying this fact. Midichlorians explain how those who can use it are identified and selected for Jedi candidacy. They stand in the place normally reserved in fan circles for the ever-popular "just because". In reality, things don't happen "just because"; they happen for a reason. When it comes to Force sensitivity, midichlorians are that reason. And "just because" took a serious hit in ROTJ anyway. We already knew Force sensitivity was genetically inherited 16 years before TPM came out.
 
To be honest i'm awaiting the day when someone decides the Original Trilogy fights should be altered to reflect a more energetic fighting style and a cgi Alec Guinness starts bouncing around like prequel Yoda on crack. I'm pretty sure the rapidly spinning corpse of Sir Alec could be harnessed to provide a new renewable source of energy for the world.

On the contrary, his rapidly spinning corpse will then be digitally inserted as new footage for the Super-Super-Special-Edition that comes after the one you describe, for even more acrobatic Obi-Wan fighting. Perfection!
 
I was looking at the prequel with my kids and my daughter stated that she doesn't think Darth Vader could defeat Count Dooku in a light saber fight.

It'd probably depend on whether it was purely a light saber fight, or whether Dooku decides to fight dirty and attack Vader's life support with force lighting.
 
As someone who has played the "Star Wars: Epic Duels" board game a LOT, I would say that Darth Vader is one of the more difficult characters to play well. All things being equal, he probably would not fare well in most matches against Count Dooku, Darth Maul, Mace Windu, & Obi-Wan Kenobi. (But then, all things being equal, Obi-Wan Kenobi kicks everyone's ass nearly every time.)
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top