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Galactic News
Friday April
5, 2002
Homing Beacon
#57
The latest Homing Beacon has arrived, and today we get to talk about lightsabers! The Phantom Menace had some of the most intense, hyper-kinetic saber duels ever captured on film. What will Stunt Coordinator and Swordmaster Nick Gillard bring to Attack of the Clones?
"The lightsaber fights in this film I started writing when I was still doing the last film," explains Gillard. "You have to. You start out with more than you need, and then hone it down. Myself and Hayden Christensen rehearsed it for nearly six weeks, I think. It's a long process and not just getting the moves, but keeping the character through it."
Gillard defines a good stunt coordinator as someone who understands the script, the story, the characters and the mood of the film. This translates into the lightsaber fights that he writes, ensuring that each of the dueling characters has a signature style.
"We're trying to go much more classical for some characters," says Gillard, "Some of the characters are real master swordsmen, better than anything we've seen so far. So we're using an old, classical European style for a couple of the characters."
Of course the weapon of choice says a lot of the characters. "I've always said before, the Jedi have chosen a sword in a time of laser guns, so they'd better be damned good with it, and they would know every style," says Gillard.
Aside from skilled masters, Episode II also shows young Jedi hopefuls starting down the path of lightsaber mastery -- for which Gillard weathered a few blows. In the film, we see Jedi Master Yoda instruct a clan of "younglings"-- helmeted children with practice lightsabers exercising with droid remotes.
"A four year old kid who can't see and is carrying a lightsaber is a pretty scary thing," admits the Stunt Coordinator. "Of the 100 kids we saw, we picked about 20. That was a great day, but there was one little girl that took a shine to me. She bit me in the back and hit me on the head with her lightsaber. You know, just being friendly."