Five Movies That Could Have Used a Lightsaber Fight
by Larson Hill

We’ve all sat through movies that have either felt too long with little action or just needed something visually stimulating to keep you engaged. Every once in a while it’s a movie you’ve been drooling to see after enduring months of seemingly endless hype. Given the glut of movies coming off of the Hollywood assembly line, every year there are movies that could use A LOT more to keep moviegoers from nodding off in their seats. Sometimes all a movie needs to wake someone up is a good brawl, a quick chase, or even a random angry guy freaking out in the street.

Although your tailbone might have gone numb in the theater after watching the following films, here are "Five Movies That Could Have Used a Lightsaber Fight" to spice things up.

Kill Bill Volume 2

You can’t say that when The Bride (Uma Thurman) is buried alive and crawls her way out of a grave meant for someone else that it wasn’t one of the coolest sequences of any Quentin Tarantino film. Unlike Volume 1, which featured a healthier balance of ass-kicking action and eccentric dialogue, the edge of your seat sequences were few and far between in Volume 2. The Bride and Bill (David Carradine) had a lot of explaining to do. Even with its Fist Full of Dollars meets 36th Chamber of Shaolin vibe, Volume 2 suffered from way too much chop-talk. The talking head ramblings of Bill brought audiences to their knees. Two of Bill’s monologues - the goldfish and Superman - were the exact points in the movie that really could have used a lightsaber fight to jolt moviegoers back to life. Just the sound of a lightsaber alone would have done the trick. When Bill waxed about how he loves Superman over Batman and Spiderman because Superman’s real identity is Superman, it would have been a ton cooler if Bill grabbed The Bride, tossed her out a window, cut off her hand with a lightsaber and THEN made the Superman revelation. At least that would’ve been an eye-popping nostalgic Tarantino type nod to The Empire Strikes Back.

Juno

Juno was a quirky alternate take on teen angst movies with a stork of a twist. Juno was a cool film, but it could’ve used a lightsaber fight along the way to appease the guys who were suckered into theaters by their girlfriends. The predicament that Ellen Page finds herself in and how she deals with it makes for an interesting ride. But when Page’s Juno meets up with Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner, a suburban couple struggling with their own related problem, that’s the "Insert Lightsaber Fight Here" point. There are a few scenes where the younger Juno and Bateman’s middle aged Mark Loring form a bond through music and pop-culture. Although their relationship is one of the most interesting layers of the film, with the two trying to understand each other through the pop-culture of their different eras, it would have been even better if Page went to the internet to spice things up. Instead of all the sappy dramatic undertones while Batemen educates Page on the legacy of Sonic Youth, Juno could have been even quirkier if Page grabbed a broomstick out the kitchen, used it as an electrostaff, and twirled around the room like a mad fool making lightsaber noises in an effort to school Bateman on the modern era and what he’s been missing from her generation. Ellen Page doing SWK? You know Juno could have used that.

Nacho Libre

What Nacho Libre really needed was a few more laughs, but you can’t say a couple of lightsaber battles wouldn’t have justified a couple more bucks at the ticket window. I mean, if Nacho was going to get his ass kicked so many times in the ring anyway, why not give him a Jedi beatdown in the process? Hell, it could have come early in the film, too, when Jack Black’s Iganacio/Nacho gets his ass handed to him by a bunch of tiny wrestlers who looked a lot like Mexican Ewoks. Despite the lack of laughs, Nacho could have served as Darth Sidious from Revenge of the Sith while a Yoda-like wrestler hopped around the ring like a Mexican jumping bean wielding a lightsaber. If Nacho’s tag partner, Skeleton came over the top rope, it could have even turned into a two-on-one duel like that of Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn against Maul in Phantom Menace. Still, a lightsaber fight could have only done so much for Nacho Libre.

Sex and the City: The Movie

Pick any scene. For us guys, it doesn’t matter. Even a shot of a glowing light under the sheets while Carrie and Mr. Big snuggle in bed together, with Big smiling at her at the sound of his hidden lightsaber would work. Imagine Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha all standing back-to-back in a small circle in Times Square, slashing away at an advancing GQ army of men. Now that would have been huge proof that after a five-year hiatus middle-aged women can still kick some ass. If anyone had motive to grab a lightsaber and slaughter some male butt it was Carrie. Instead of going the emotional, weepy route, Carrie could have given chase to her emotional demon down Broadway, hopped on his motorbike, disabled it, and, with lightsaber in hand, stood toe-to-toe with the guy to exact her revenge before laying waste to love in a ball of flames. "Revenge and the City" anyone?

The Happening

I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but The Happening could have used one long battle from start to finish. It’s hard to look at where a lightsaber fight would work best without thinking that everyone would probably be running around with a lightsaber in-hand, hacking away at everything in sight just out of paranoia. Just when you’d hear the awesome harmonic tone and the vibrant light, the character would fall down dead. Someone else would pick it up, activate, and then fall down dead. It’d be like Ewan McGregor in Phantom Menace using the Force to summons his fallen Master's lightsaber before jumping behind Darth Maul only to fall down and die for no "apparent" reason. There’s a scene in The Happening at a boarded up house that pits survivor against survivor as the world slides into chaos. With so much fear and paranoia, it’s the perfect setting for a crazy lightsaber fight. Mark Wahlberg and his trusty younglings storm the compound in a lightsaber wielding frenzy only to be overpowered and sent on his way. Wahlberg then heads to an industrial sector of town where he comes face to face with his master, Darth Shyamalan, who reveals the war is in fact... happening.