Darth Vader(ROTJ) vs Count Dooku(ROTS) vs Maul(SoD)

Mysteryman06 wrote:@Meatpants Evidence that Ventress scales "laughably" above Maul?  

The assumption that there is a correlation with faster choreography and actualised force power doesn't work in the slightest. If we applied this wonky logic, then that would mean TPM Darth Maul>Sidious in power, as Maul was clearly shown to be more faster and acrobatic in his duel in TPM than Sidious in the two duels he had in ROTS. Obviously this doesn't make sense and is in direct contradiction to the lore.

TPM Maul ~ EoTPM Kenobi < AOTC Kenobi < TCD Kenobi << TCD Fisto << TCD Ventress

I'm talking about Lucas at the time of the production of TPM, so further movies are irrelevant. He directly attributes the increased speed to better swordfighting, that's it.

Vader/Ventress quote only states that Ventress wasn't intended to be trained as a threat to the Rule of Two from Sidious' perspective. That isn't mutually exclusive with her actually becoming more powerful and skilled than Vader.

@TheNuisanceBird

Feats are irrelevant unless you suggest a methodology where feats are the only measure of power.

They are a measure of power though. Ignoring Vader's superior showings of TK over Fisto would be foolish. Even if Fisto if above Vader in sabers he's not in Force in either Legends or Canon.

If we wanna go by statements, Lucas has said that instead of being Sidious's superior in power Vader got reduced to Maul and Dooku's level who in their system or both 8's which makes sense given their showings.

I'm talking about Lucas at the time of the production of TPM, so further movies are irrelevant. He directly attributes the increased speed to better swordfighting, that's it.

George Lucas in 1999/2000: Vader's a cripple so he's < TPM Jinn.

George Lucas 5 years later: By the time we got to the first light-saber battle, we realized we weren’t going to be able to do much. And so I accepted it was an old man vs. a half-man, half-machine.

I'll take Lucas' words when not promoting his new trilogy's choreography and explicit retcon of that quote to the crappy ANH fight over the idea that TPM Jinn using a more energetic and faster fighting style makes him arbitrarily more skilled.

Your quoted sentence above - forgive me if I've taken it out of context - implies that you're not bothering to look beyond TPM, which seems more than a little arbitrary to me. You might as well use Lucas saying Yoda isn't a lightsaber duelist or true fighter and just has stronger powers to avoid being challenged because he doesn't fight until AOTC.

@BreakOfDawn:

George Lucas in 1999/2000: Vader's a cripple so he's < TPM Jinn.

George Lucas 5 years later: By the time we got to the first light-saber battle, we realized we weren’t going to be able to do much. And so I accepted it was an old man vs. a half-man, half-machine.

Where's the contradiction? And post the quote in full pls.

@Sjuttiosju

Where's the contradiction?

The "contradiction" is in Lucas' earlier claims that Vader isn't a "true Jedi" because he's a half-machine cripple. Here, Lucas outright changes that to ANH Vader, not other iterations.

And post the quote in full pls.

Not really sure what you expect the rest of the quote to say to contradict this, but sure:

Just how restrictive was that costume?
He couldn’t move at all, really. We had to keep modifying the suit so people could move in it. By the time we got to the first light-saber battle, we realized we weren’t going to be able to do much. And so I accepted it was an old man vs. a half-man, half-machine. But Jedi were supposed to be quite active. So for the next one, we got a really good stunt guy in, one of the best sword fighters in England. And Mark Hamill is a good sword fighter. For the final film, Hayden [Christensen] and Obi-Wan – I mean Ewan – took it very seriously; they trained for months. Those swords are carbon fiber: We went through lots of them, because they were hitting so hard, they would get bent. It’s like learning to dance, only if you make a mistake, you really get hurt.

Lucas draws a distinction between the "old man vs. a half-man, half-machine" claims he applies to ANH Ben and Vader - due to the technological limitations he's repeatedly referred to countless times and his personal frustration and disappointment with ANH - and the succeeding films, where in light of Jedi needing to be "quite active" they "got a really good stunt guy in, one of the best sword fighters in England".

In short, Lucas is distinguishing between this:




And this:




Where a clear difference exists between the suit's limitations and the choreography of the fight.

Also, please pay attention to the wording, specifically "By the time we got to the first light-saber battle" - where Lucas says he "accepted it was an old-man vs. a half-man, half machine" in light of his frustration with ANH (I'll dig out those interviews later, if you'd like) - and "But for the next one", indicating a clear difference between ANH Vader being a cripple and ESB Vader.

TheNuisanceBird wrote:They are a measure of power though. Ignoring Vader's superior showings of TK over Fisto would be foolish. Even if Fisto if above Vader in sabers he's not in Force in either Legends or Canon.

They are a measure in power... to a point. You can't use feats to toss out scaling though. Augmentation has a direct correlation with Force power, so Fisto being a better duelist also makes him more powerful. Also remember that comics are a different medium to the movies.

TheNuisanceBird wrote:If we wanna go by statements, Lucas has said that instead of being Sidious's superior in power Vader got reduced to Maul and Dooku's level who in their system or both 8's which makes sense given their showings.

Lucas is talking about how Vader went from being superior to becoming a servant of the Emperor, just like Dooku and Maul.

@BreakofDawn

Lucas' reasoning behind Vader being a bad duelist is irrelevant, it's still true. Him saying that isn't a retcon at all, especially when he's got a plethora of other quotes saying stuff along the exact same lines.

My point about not applying this against the other two prequel movies is simple. As of TPM, Lucas attributes better and faster choreography with better swordfighters. However, for ROTS we have his own official ranking system (we also know that the office duel for example was originally supposed to be much faster but they had to make an ad hoc choreography on the day of shooting with the actors).

Meatpants wrote:TPM Maul ~ EoTPM Kenobi < AOTC Kenobi < TCD Kenobi << TCD Fisto << TCD Ventress

I mean, TPM Maul was still miles better than Force Rage Kenobi besides being caught off-guard briefly. Maul wasn't breaking a sweat whereas Kenobi's reserves were exhausted. If Maul himself entered a Force Rage Kenobi would get annihilated. The other way your scaling chain is disrupted is by the fact S4 Maul, who is rustier than TPM Maul and hindered by his anatomically foreign legs, was a good match for S4 Kenobi (which also puts him in proximity or superiority to S4 Savage and Ventress). Not to mention there's no guarantee that standard AotC Kenobi is always > TPM Kenobi at the moment where he's distraught from seeing Qui-Gon's death.

So nah, TPM Maul would shred Ventress and turn Fisto into a green smoothie.

@BreakOfDawn:

Your post assumes that Vader improving from ANH to ESB per Lucas's word is somehow contradictory with him still being beneath TPM Kenobi. It's not, and never will be. That Lucas wanted ESB characters to be more active than they were in ANH says little about their standing relative to the PT Jedi... who are still superior per George's musings.

Is ROTJ Vader at his prime?

The Found wrote:I mean, TPM Maul was still miles better than Force Rage Kenobi besides being caught off-guard briefly. Maul wasn't breaking a sweat whereas Kenobi's reserves were exhausted. If Maul himself entered a Force Rage Kenobi would get annihilated.

There's no evidence suggesting Maul was "miles better". The duel is quite long in the adult novelisation, and even in the movie it goes for about 40 seconds, the greater part of a minute. Per Darth Zannah, duels almost never last longer than a minute, so Obi-Wan lasting that long suggests as it does with Qui-Gon loose parity. Unless you're suggesting that Maul was holding back or something (which there's no evidence for) I don't see how you could justify the claim you've made. In the novel, Maul gets desperate enough that he sees the need to use TK to disrupt the flow of Obi-Wan's attack too.

There's also this:

The Complete Visual Dictionary wrote:Obi-Wan is an exceptional lightsaber duelist and a formidable opponent for Darth Maul.

Rage and anger hinders Obi-Wan; while he did gain more offensive potency, his overall combative ability was lowered. Not only that, but many sources explain how Maul took advantage of Kenobi's unfocused rage to rejuvenate himself whilst Obi-Wan grew weaker. This segues into your other point about TCW, where Kenobi has unresolved issues with Maul and suffers from that lack of focus. Really, Kenobi doesn't master his ability to focus on the Force and allow it to guide him fully until ROTS.

does lucas acknowledge ben getting less skilled by any chance? or is that implied because he is an old man? if so, that would be weird, since neither sidious nor yoda seemed to have gotten less skilled, and had been out of practice for longer as well.

lorenzo.r.2nd wrote:does lucas acknowledge ben getting less skilled by any chance? or is that implied because he is an old man? if so, that would be weird, since neither sidious nor yoda seemed to have gotten less skilled, and had been out of practice for longer as well.

IIRC a few sources note that Ben's skills have deteriorated. Thought I had them saved, but I don't, or else I'd post them here.

Meatpants wrote:

lorenzo.r.2nd wrote:does lucas acknowledge ben getting less skilled by any chance? or is that implied because he is an old man? if so, that would be weird, since neither sidious nor yoda seemed to have gotten less skilled, and had been out of practice for longer as well.

IIRC a few sources note that Ben's skills have deteriorated. Thought I had them saved, but I don't, or else I'd post them here.

i know about the sources, hence why i ask about lucas himself. if lucas doesnt talk about it, then we might just ignore the sources just like we do with everything else that lucas doesnt acknowledge. i guess u could say id be a denier lol

lorenzo.r.2nd wrote:

Sjuttiosju wrote:@Mysteryman06:

The assumption that there is a correlation with faster choreography and actualised force power doesn't work in the slightest. If we applied this wonky logic, then that would mean TPM Darth Maul>Sidious in power, as Maul was clearly shown to be more faster and acrobatic in his duel in TPM than Sidious in the two duels he had in ROTS. Obviously this doesn't make sense and is in direct contradiction to the lore.

This is a total false equivalency, because TPM Kenobi>Vader isn't the case due to improved choreography, but is true as a result of Lucas saying he was using the better choreography in question as a device to convey Kenobi's superiority. It's not a correlation between upgraded choreography and augmentation that is significant here, but that the correlation exists specifically because of Lucas's intent, per his own words. Now, if you want to argue that Maul>Sidious is also a Lucas held view go right ahead (good luck if you do lol), but otherwise I'm expecting an instant concession on this point.

Vader literally has a quote that puts him above Ventress

Contradicted by WOG and C-Canon sources outnumbering it. Dismissed.

i would rather not get raped in one of these again, but one thing id like to say - if we use lucas as word of god for everything, and have in fact to take him literally, then we cannot assume anything, since the counter argument could just be "thats not EXACTLY what he said". better choreography is prolly an argument for agility, and maybe skill, and likely nothing further than that, since it would fall into 100% assumption that can be manipulated by the person using it at any time. not to mention, the obvious fact that if choreography = skill/power/agility, than wouldnt all fights that have similar choreography imply similar levels of skill, agility, and power? thats simply wrong. yoda vs dooku was far more varied and crazy than yoda vs sidious, for example, but nobody would use that as an argument to say that dooku > sidious.

can someone read this and tell me if it works or not? id rather get rid of it or make use it as soon as possible.

Why would we do that? If Lucas doesn't contradict it, then it's perfectly permissible.

Meatpants wrote:Why would we do that? If Lucas doesn't contradict it, then it's perfectly permissible.

but if lucas doesnt acknowledge, then it can as useless as it can be useful. its very counter intuitive, but when u suck at star wars like i do, it becomes incredibly effective lol

Because Lucas says that he improved the choreography in each of the OT movies to show that Luke and Vader are getting better, then segues into how Maul and co. are faster and more skilled. Lucas is saying the three fighters in TPM >> ROTJ Luke and Vader, and he's saying how he used choreography to display that. From AOTC onwards he and Gillard created the tiers which we use for the last two films of the prequels.

Meatpants wrote:Because Lucas says that he improved the choreography in each of the OT movies to show that Luke and Vader are getting better, then segues into how Maul and co. are faster and more skilled. Lucas is saying the three fighters in TPM >> ROTJ Luke and Vader, and he's saying how he used choreography to display that. From AOTC onwards he and Gillard created the tiers which we use for the last two films of the prequels.

alright, thanks. albeit, isnt luke implied to be a true jedi by ROTJ or something? something that lucas says we havent seen in the first two movies, of course, but wouldnt the script imply that this has changed by ROTJ? or am i just misremembering?

Meatpants wrote:Because Lucas says that he improved the choreography in each of the OT movies to show that Luke and Vader are getting better, then segues into how Maul and co. are faster and more skilled. Lucas is saying the three fighters in TPM >> ROTJ Luke and Vader, and he's saying how he used choreography to display that. From AOTC onwards he and Gillard created the tiers which we use for the last two films of the prequels.

alright, thanks. albeit, isnt luke implied to be a true jedi by ROTJ or something? something that lucas says we havent seen in the first two movies, of course, but wouldnt the script imply that this has changed by ROTJ? or am i just misremembering?

lorenzo.r.2nd wrote:

Meatpants wrote:Because Lucas says that he improved the choreography in each of the OT movies to show that Luke and Vader are getting better, then segues into how Maul and co. are faster and more skilled. Lucas is saying the three fighters in TPM >> ROTJ Luke and Vader, and he's saying how he used choreography to display that. From AOTC onwards he and Gillard created the tiers which we use for the last two films of the prequels.

alright, thanks. albeit, isnt luke implied to be a true jedi by ROTJ or something? something that lucas says we havent seen in the first two movies, of course, but wouldnt the script imply that this has changed by ROTJ? or am i just misremembering?

George Lucas, in the RotJ audio commentary, describes Luke as being his, "full, mature self, ready to face his final challenge [Vader]" or something along those lines. He talks about this over the scene in which Yoda states that Luke requires no more training, and is telling Luke to go confront Vader. On top of that, Vader acknowledges that Luke's training is complete on Endor, and both Vader and Palpatine comment on how powerful Luke has become. Then, of course, the RotJ script makes it clear that Luke is now Vader's equal, and if there is any advantage to be had between the two, it's Luke's.

All indication points to Luke having the capabilities of a fully fledged Jedi by RotJ. Couple that with Lucas' statements about Mark Hamill's training as a sword fighter and how he hired one of the best swordsmen in the world to do the choreography for the movie and to stand in for Vader, and this further solidifies the idea that Luke was a true Jedi during that time frame. Honestly, I think George's comments about the fight choreography in TPM were all done to drum up hype, and aren't consistent with his overall view of Star Wars by 2008.

By 2008, when he was working on The Force Unleashed and The Clone Wars, there seemed to be a change in stance around Vader from George's 1999 comments. Suddenly, Vader was able to rather easily best prequel-era Jedi. Vader in TFU and TFU II is portrayed as a juggernaut that is nearly unstoppable to combatants that should realistically be well above the capability of TPM Kenobi. Unless everyone truly believes Kento Marek, Rahm Kota, Kazdan Paratus, Shaak Ti, and Galen Marek are all truly below TPM Kenobi, it should go without saying that Vader's standing by 2008 was considerably higher than it was in 1999.

Underachiever599 wrote:All indication points to Luke having the capabilities of a fully fledged Jedi by RotJ. Couple that with Lucas' statements about Mark Hamill's training as a sword fighter and how he hired one of the best swordsmen in the world to do the choreography for the movie and to stand in for Vader, and this further solidifies the idea that Luke was a true Jedi during that time frame. Honestly, I think George's comments about the fight choreography in TPM were all done to drum up hype, and aren't consistent with his overall view of Star Wars by 2008.

What exactly is his overall view as of 2008? What has he said that contradicts TPM Kenobi > ROTJ Luke? You can't dismiss stuff he says in official interviews because you interpret them as "just hype".

Underachiever599 wrote:By 2008, when he was working on The Force Unleashed and The Clone Wars, there seemed to be a change in stance around Vader from George's 1999 comments. Suddenly, Vader was able to rather easily best prequel-era Jedi. Vader in TFU and TFU II is portrayed as a juggernaut that is nearly unstoppable to combatants that should realistically be well above the capability of TPM Kenobi. Unless everyone truly believes Kento Marek, Rahm Kota, Kazdan Paratus, Shaak Ti, and Galen Marek are all truly below TPM Kenobi, it should go without saying that Vader's standing by 2008 was considerably higher than it was in 1999.

This does not make sense at all. Lucas agreed to TFU because in his words it allowed the devs to exagerrate Force powers due to the medium, unlike what was shown in the movies. The feats don't contradict the G-canon scaling though. Your argument is subjective interpretation of feats and intent.

When does Vader "easily best prequel-era Jedi"? You mean Galen's no-name dad? Or a soul-shattered Shaak-Ti? Rahm Kota? What indicates any one of these is above TPM Kenobi?

Nothing in the game contradicts Vader being below Maul at all.

There is no G-canon source that contradicts Vader being below TPM Kenobi. He's still locked there I'm afraid.

Underachiever599 wrote:Unless everyone truly believes Kento Marek, Rahm Kota, Kazdan Paratus, Shaak Ti, and Galen Marek are all truly below TPM Kenobi,

Yes

Meatpants wrote:

Underachiever599 wrote:All indication points to Luke having the capabilities of a fully fledged Jedi by RotJ. Couple that with Lucas' statements about Mark Hamill's training as a sword fighter and how he hired one of the best swordsmen in the world to do the choreography for the movie and to stand in for Vader, and this further solidifies the idea that Luke was a true Jedi during that time frame. Honestly, I think George's comments about the fight choreography in TPM were all done to drum up hype, and aren't consistent with his overall view of Star Wars by 2008.

What exactly is his overall view as of 2008? What has he said that contradicts TPM Kenobi > ROTJ Luke? You can't dismiss stuff he says in official interviews because you interpret them as "just hype".

Underachiever599 wrote:By 2008, when he was working on The Force Unleashed and The Clone Wars, there seemed to be a change in stance around Vader from George's 1999 comments. Suddenly, Vader was able to rather easily best prequel-era Jedi. Vader in TFU and TFU II is portrayed as a juggernaut that is nearly unstoppable to combatants that should realistically be well above the capability of TPM Kenobi. Unless everyone truly believes Kento Marek, Rahm Kota, Kazdan Paratus, Shaak Ti, and Galen Marek are all truly below TPM Kenobi, it should go without saying that Vader's standing by 2008 was considerably higher than it was in 1999.

This does not make sense at all. Lucas agreed to TFU because in his words it allowed the devs to exagerrate Force powers due to the medium, unlike what was shown in the movies. The feats don't contradict the G-canon scaling though. Your argument is subjective interpretation of feats and intent.

When does Vader "easily best prequel-era Jedi"? You mean Galen's no-name dad? Or a soul-shattered Shaak-Ti? Rahm Kota? What indicates any one of these is above TPM Kenobi?

Nothing in the game contradicts Vader being below Maul at all.

ROAN SHRYNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

TPM Kenobi is proximate to Jinn who is council level. "The most skilled and powerful Jedi in the order"

So yes scrubs like Kota, Kento and Kazdan are authoritatively beneath them. Even Ti has nothing to put her above him.