See A Lightsaber Fight That Uses Real Swordfighting Tactics
A new fan-made video features a fantastic lightsaber duel, utilizing proper sword-fighting techniques.
Every Star Wars fan, in their heart of hearts, wishes that they could have a real lightsaber. We’ve got quite a while to wait for the real thing (although Disney is bringing us closer and closer) — but if lightsabers were real, what sort of tactics would be used in a fight? Over on Youtube, Corridor Digital has answered that question, tasking an expert swordsman to choreograph a duel using real swordfighting tactics. The video is exciting, and at times even funny, and it’s interesting to see genuine dueling tactics used with lightsabers.
The video features a teacher and a student practicing in a martial arts dojo-like environment, while being observed by a cleaning girl, who listens to a mysterious stranger standing with her, as he describes the tactics of the lightsaber fight. The student performs poorly, taking a number of wounds — including losing a hand — before being felled by a single stroke from the teacher.
It is here that the comedy comes in. As the cleaning girl expresses horror at the violence she just witnessed, a bored technician wheels in a large piece of equipment, which he uses to re-attach the students’ hand, and heal their other wounds, before reviving them for another round of the lightsaber fight.
What follows is a rapid-fire series of sequences where the student loses again again, and the technician revives him again and again. He loses a hand, then both, and is felled by the teacher over and over again, each time to be revived by the technician’s rapid-healing machine. There is even a sly joke at the expense of the Star Wars films, as the student attempts some flashy lightsaber moves of the sort commonly seen in fights between the Jedi and the Sith, only to be unceremoniously cut down in mid-spin by the irritated teacher.
Eventually, the student masters the skills and the attitude necessary to win a lightsaber fight, and succeeds in bringing the teacher down (to of course be revived by the hapless technician). The student turns, and seeing the mysterious stranger who has been narrating these events, bows deeply. The cleaning girl asks him who he is, and he reveals that this is his school, which produces the best swordsmen — and asks her if she’d like to join.
It’s a well-produced fan film, and it manages to stand out from the crowd by using genuine longsword tactics in the choreography of the lightsaber fight. It even takes some liberties with the established special effects that we’re all familiar with, giving us lighsabers which are closer to welding torches than the laser swords of the films.
Lightsabers are one of the most-beloved elements of the Star Wars franchise, and every fan has dreamt of being able to wield one. Given the experience of the student in this video, it may be a better option to use real swordfighting tactics, rather than the elaborate, whirling choreography of the films, should you ever find yourself in possession of a real lightsaber — at least if you want to keep your hands attached… and don’t have a bored technician standing by with a rapid-healing machine.
