by Matthew Stalbaum

Created on: May 25, 2010

I remember rewatching the end of Return of the Jedi on TV one day, long after the prequel movles caused a disturbance with so many fans.  I turned to Episode 6 right at the climactic battle between Luke and Vader, with the Emperor in the background, jeering them on.  As they were hacking away at each other, I couldn't help but realize - their fighting was so slow, so simple!  There was no jumping around, no flips or flourishes.  Darth Vader wasn't done in CGI, and the lightsabers didn't look like glowing helicopter rutters. 

It's nearly impossible to compare characters from the original trilogy with characters introduced in the prequels, if only for the fact that there's an entirely different aesthetic between them.  We know from Episode 1 that Obi-Wan's training days included facing droids with impenetrable shields, those human, prone-to-error Stormtroopers must have seemed like nothing to him, I guess proving that the older generation always has it harder ("you kids don't know nothin', back in my day, you had to be able to fight with TWO lightsabers at any time, and don't get me started on the double-sided ones!").  I just imagine Darth Vader watching Maul twirling his vanity-saber around, reminiscing back to the time when he did that style of fighting against Count Dooku and lost an arm.  It'd be like a blast from the past!

To bring up Episode 6 again, though, we know that Vader can really let out the hate of the dark-side in his saber-fighting, and that was on his own son, as he's struggling to avoid killing him, not to mention the fact that he killed his own mentor in A New Hope.  We never get to see Vader use his lightsaber on a random enemy - there were no scattered Jedi masters like Maul or Dooku or Palpatine by that point, because he had murdered them all!  Despite his eventual redemption, there's no dying that, before that point, he was Death and Evil incarnate (capital "D" and "E" respectively).  If you messed up, you died.  If you stood in his way, you died.  If you rebelled against him, you might live long enough to escape, but not before your home-planet was obliterated. 

Every instant we see Vader kill someone in the original trilogy, those are all the occasions he has to be at his most lenient.  Even his negotiation tactics involving genocide - that's not even an exaggeration, that might be an understatement, considering that an entire planet was destroyed.  Darth Maul might have his fancy lightsaber, some flashier moves, and increased speed, but Darth Vader has cold-hearted cunning, an absolute lack of remorse, and on top of it all, a stronger talent for using the force.  No offence to Darth Maul, but it'd be a short fight.

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