The lightsaber fights were AWESOME, and here's why

I disagree, and here's why:

People who don't like the lightsabre fights in the prequels do so not because they're fought by preternaturally powered combatants or because they don't swing with all their strength, they don't like them because they don't feel compelling. The balletic choreography isn't criticised because it makes the fighters look too powerful.

But the biggest detraction from these fights is because the fighters don't look like they care and the fights aren't "about" anything. By that I mean that the fights come up because they're enemies and they're fighting.

Darth Maul vs. Qui-Gon Obi-Wan is just a fight. It's not really advancing the plot, showing us an aspect of the characters, or acting as a storytelling device. It's boring.

In contrast, think about the fight at the end of Return of the Jedi - that's between father and son and the stakes aren't "who wins", it's Luke's soul. Luke following his father or denying his "dark side" is the question and the stakes of the fight and it gives the fight a potency that just isn't had between, say, Obi-Wan and General Grevous.

It's particularly painful in the prequels because the characters are drawn so poorly, the plot so fumbling, that even when they should be powerful, they fall short. The biggest disappointment in lightsabre fights was the final conflict between Anakin and Obi-Wan in Episode III. It should be the tragic end of a friendship, but it's not because they never feel like friends. It should be the last chance Obi-Wan has to save Anakin (mirroring Luke's decision in Episode VI), but it's not - it's foregone that Anakin has turned to evil because the plot said so.

Far more interesting is the fight where Mace goes to arrest Palpatine. It feels better because Anakin makes a choice in the fight, we see characters making political moves, and if you took out the fight itself, just had Mace threaten Palpatine and Anakin push him out the window, the scene would still work.

If you took out the fight between Obi-Wan and Anakin on lavaland (I don't remember the planet name), the scene would be:

OBI-WAN: You've turned to the Dark Side!

ANAKIN: I sure have.

And Obi-Wan would chop off his limbs and that'd be that.

Frankly that's the worst one, in my opinion, because it's not a good scene, but it's really, bloody long.

For me, any time I don't like a fight scene, it's usually because the scene wouldn't work without the combat. Great fight scenes that I can think of would work if you just had the characters talking.

Think about Morpheus v. Neo in the training program, or Jen v. Yu Shu Lien in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The one-shot fight in Seven Samurai. Or the playful combat between Westley and Inigo in Princess Bride.

Those scenes would be entertaining without good choreography or effects. They would work even without the fight at all. Westley and Inigo might just as easily have verbally sparred, discovered mutual respect, demonstrated dedication to their causes, and arrived at a conclusion without ever drawing their blades and it would be great.

The difference is that if you take out the flashy choreography from Episode I, that fight with Darth Maul is AWFUL.

The best lightsaber fight is Luke vs Vader in Empire. Fact. And it involves almost no jumping around or special affects.