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Bob Anderson, the Man Behind Vader's Lightsaber, Dies at 89
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Australia's ABC News: "Bob Anderson, an Olympic swordsman who staged fights for films including the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings trilogy, has died at the age of 89. ... Anderson donned Darth Vader's black helmet and fought light-saber battles in two of the three original Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but his role was not initially publicized." The accompanying video clips are great; I never thought about anyone being in the Vader suit besides David Prowse.
Ep 4 is a bit clunky, yes. As other posters have noted, that was made before they brought in the expertise they needed - so you get a fight which is basically two untrained old(ish) men taking swings at each other.
But what you get in Eps 5 and 6 is a sense of story to the fight. In 5, when Luke fights Vader, he's clearly lost the fight before it even begins. He's distracted and off-balance. Vader's the older, smarter and more skilled fighter. Luke tries gamely enough to begin with, but every swing he takes is turned against him. Vader's not going all out; he doesn't want to kill, so he bides his time and breaks down his opponent before going for a disabling blow.
In Ep 6, the battle in the throne room begins much the same way. Luke is, once again, at a disadvantage (though he's more aware of it this time). However, once he "snaps" and charges Vader (culminating in him chopping Vader's hand off), his style changes completely. He leaves himself wide open and goes for all-out attack. To use an analogy from fighting games; he's button-mashing. And it catches Vader off guard. Vader's probably still more skilled, but he's also older and slower. He can't keep up with Luke, let alone counter-attack.
In Eps 5 and 6, the fights help to tell the story. The genius of the choreography of the fights is that it takes place at a pace which allows the average viewer to actually pick up on that.
By contrast, the eps 1-3 fights have very little sense of story to them. They're more concerned with "wow factor" and, to put a cynical hat on for a moment, with making sure that everybody gets a chance to look cool to boost the toy sales. I never got a sense that a character's emotional state is being reflected in how they fight.