Star Wars Test Footoge: Windu vs Palpatine (with original sound effects)

Original Creator Channel Gillardstunts
Special effects Star Wars Analyst

0:51 - Original scene

#starwars #starwarsmix #revengeofthesith #episode3 #footage #vfx

[lesgalloiseries]

"Okay guys, this is perfect. The best-looking fight we've made so far. Now let's be sure to use absolutely none of it."

[dignusdingus]

Palpatine's attacks are so smooth here it almost has this optical illusion effect to it, oddly unpredictable and that makes it terrifying.

[acidic_magpie]

Master Windu. You’re whiter than I expected.

[AP-temk]

Lucas needed someone on set to protect him from himself. These duels that he cut were absolutely epic.

[alanmt]

Dang, this movie is gonna turn 20 years old soon, and even its Deleted Lightsaber duels outshine every other SW cinematic fights since 2005. Such a masterpiece.

[hunterkiller]

This is way better than what we got in the movies.

[jordanglasper]

I can’t get over this fight. It’s too damn good.

[ricardoquintero]

Ok, Nick, this is a pivotal moment in which arguably two of the greatest lightsaber duelists fight to determine the fate of the galaxy... use the older actors with very little to no training.

[Hannex]

I remember reading the novelization before the movie came out and being so excited for this duel and then disappointed by what i saw on screen. This definitely feels more like what i expected.

[thesithchef]

This hurts my feelings… I think this deserves the same treatment as the 1997 OG trilogy special additions. Give me an extended cut with all of this back in please Mr. Lucas.

[josemanuelamadorcastro]

I was gonna propose deepfakes but putting Sam Jackson's face there wouldn't be that simple hahahaha

[joshuvuh]

This feels like one of the most important fights in the saga I wish so much that they filmed it like this instead of what we got. George decided on the day of the shoot he was gonna change his mind and have Ian fight instead of this double. If the double fought with it would’ve been what we got here

[MrKevin]

Not having this in the movie was one of, if not THE biggest obvious mistakes Lucas made with Ep 3. Palpatine needed to seem unstoppable and terrifying, but what we got was a edited mess. This would have been 10x better. And really instilled into us that Palpatine was no joke, that he was a monster.

[galece]

Not gonna lie, i think the force scream entry here where the camera is head on is better than the original.

[shikamaru]

My understanding is that George decided just 3 days before this scene was due to be filmed to use Ian McDiarmid instead of a stunt double wearing Palpatine's hood to hide his face. Because of that, Nick Gillard had to scrap this original choreography and come up with much simpler choreography that 58 year old (at the time) Ian could learn in just 3 days. Choreography on the scale of what was seen in the video above would have taken weeks of actor practice to learn and even with weeks the 58 year old Ian may not have been able to perform the moves anywhere near this fast, so we ended up with the slapdash 3 day choreography job we got in the movie, a sequence with much slower and simpler moves, frequent camera cuts to hide the fact that Ian didn't have enough practice time to learn long sequences, and pointless close up face shots during the duel to obscure the actual bladework.

Such a shame, Mace Windu deserved a better fight sequence, he was the 2nd strongest Jedi in the order after Yoda, noted for his personally designed Vaapad variant of Form 7 (the only Variant of Form 7 approved by the Jedi Order), said to be so fast that the average viewer couldn't even track Mace's moves with their eyes. The duel in the movie made Mace look more like a Padawan being toyed with by the much stronger Palpatine who was holding himself back (we saw Palpatine move much faster against Yoda later in the movie because they used a stunt double for those scenes, which created the illusion that Palpatine was holding himself back against Mace earlier in the movie). This originally designed choreography by comparison shows both Palpatine and Mace going all out, which means that Mace did legitimately beat Sidious just as George Lucas said he did, instead of how it appeared in the movie that Palpatine let Mace win just so that he could turn Anakin.

[malicant]

The stand-in performer for Palpatine actually looks quite like what a young Palpatine was described as.

[ArchangelExile]

In this version, it's absolutely clear that Palpatine was the better duelist and had control of the fight the entire time. Palps made Mace fumble and stumble quite a few times while he, himself, was clean and had the upper hand.

[jamilor]

I always thought Palpatine’s spinning entry into the fight in the movie looked silly but it looks pretty cool here.

[zombslayer]

In this deleted scene he kills the 1st 2 Jedi even FASTER than the Original… But Kit Fisto Lasts Longer 😂

[rontaylor]

What TRULY hurts is that they didn't use this as the actual sequence.
Sure; Sam Jackson and Ian McDiarmid were too old and inexperienced to have done this themselves, but George could've hired a Black stunt man earlier and gave him time to learn those same saber skills. And then incorporated this AWESOME scene into the film...