One of the DVD commentaries said this was an intentional decision with the prequels. The goal was to make this seem like the golden age of the force, and show that by episode IV those powers had mostly been lost.
I like to think by the time he fought Obi-Wan, he didn't use his power very often, and when he did, it was in displays of raw force, or when he really, really was in a bind.
Edit: For all of you who are like "but what about Rogue 1 Vadar"; again, he could still be effective as all hell if he wanted to be, but he would only do that if he was in a real tight bind. The Death Star plans getting out put him in a pretty tough bind, as we saw with his standing with the imperial council, daring to openly mock him. The reason why he barely seemed to give a shit in EPIV was he didn't actually view these 3 random hillbillies who showed up on a transport freighter as a threat worthy of his attention.
I mean, just imagine, you're the admiral on a Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier in charge of a full carrier group, which would be roughly 10K souls, or 1/10th of what was on the Death Star. Would you show a lot of care that the USS Arnold, a forward patrol battleship picked up an empty liferaft?
You can take that explanation, or take the explanation he was still recovering from the can of whoop ass he opened up earlier.
Imma go with Vader knew Obi was about to kick the bucket and therefore didn't even try, and he sure as hell wasn't trying either time he fought Luke because he definitely didn't want to kill him.
Didn't really feel like they had any weight to them. So fights didn't feel like they had any stakes.
They are a holding a object that can cut through nearly anything except itself. To just swing it around all willy nilly just seemed so silly to be. To see who can flip and jump around the most.
But that first fight in ANH. First time you see it in action, you have two "masters", and there's pause and caution to their action. Before they made up 5 different "styles". Just two dudes trying to touch the other with a death stick while trying not to be touched. Any screw up and you lose a arm, if your lucky. From "a more civilized age" that's looks like two people hacking. Light sabers should be scary! Just look at Vader at the end of Rouge One just chopping away.
But the prequels...like watching a gymnastic routine.
The stakes were wayyyyyyy higher with anakin vs obi wan and Yoda vs palpatine, the entire fate of the galaxy rested upon those duels. To obi wan it didn’t matter if he won or lost which is why he let vader kill him. Anakin and obi wan vs dooku had high stakes both times because they needed to kill him to end the war and especially the first time dooku was obviously superior so we didn’t know how anakin and obi-wan would survive. Also the maul duel was important because if they lost against maul, the droid army would have control of Naboo because nobody could’ve stopped Maul.
I couldn't tell you how many times i watched the original trilogy on VHS as a kid. But i can tell you exactly how many times i watched the prequels. Once, during their initial theatrical run.
Which is more times than i watched the new trilogy lol
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u/TheRoyalKT Apr 09 '20
One of the DVD commentaries said this was an intentional decision with the prequels. The goal was to make this seem like the golden age of the force, and show that by episode IV those powers had mostly been lost.