Secrets Of Yoda's Epic Dooku Battle Revealed By Jar Jar Binks Actor

Summary Ahmed Best, known as Jar Jar Binks, choreographed Yoda's Dooku fight in Star Wars, ensuring it wasn't silly but served to showcase Yoda's prowess.

Best drew on martial arts and anime influences to create a new lightsaber form, Ataru, for Yoda's duel. It was crucial to nail the scene.

Yoda's battle in Attack of the Clones set the stage for the rest of the Star Wars series, ensuring a positive reception. Ahmed Best's work was crucial.

Jar Jar Binks actor Ahmed Best has revealed how he choreographed Yoda's Dooku battle in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones. Viewers were thrilled when Ahmed Best returned to Star Wars in The Mandalorian season 3, wowed by the stunning fight choreography demonstrated by his Jedi Master Kelleran Beq. But that wasn't his first contribution to Star Wars' fight choreography; incredibly, he was also the mastermind behind Yoda's duel with Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones.

Speaking to Inverse, Best explained that the script gave next to no detail about Yoda's fight with Dooku. ILM's Rob Coleman (then head of animation) was struggling with figuring out how to show the battle, and Best - who has a strong martial arts background - pulled him aside. "I was thinking this fight could go either way," Best recalled. "It could be spectacular, or it could be really silly … [and] it can’t be silly. He has to be probably the baddest cat. We have to know why Yoda is Yoda."

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According to Best, he took Coleman aside and showed him some of the latest martial arts and anime movies:

"I was like, 'Rob, come to the crib. We’re going to watch some stuff, and then let’s write this fight.' So he came to the crib and we watched. Ninja Scroll was out at that time. That was the hot anime. Jet Li was kind of on the scene as the hottest martial arts star, right? But then we went back to Jackie Chan, and we started watching all of these movies back to back. Akira, we watched. And I was like, 'We gotta take all of these influences and put it into this fight.'"

At the very least, Best hoped Yoda would hit what he called "that classical, ‘Let’s go’ kung fu pose." But he had no idea whether Coleman took up his ideas, because he didn't get to see the animations until the movie's release. "As soon as I see the shadow of Yoda walk in, I hear the crowd going, 'Oh, it’s about to go down.' He hits the stance. And then the whole crowd is like, 'We’re about to see Yoda get down!' I was like, 'We did it.'"

Related “Blinded by the Light”: Yoda Admits the Real Reason He Missed the Sith’s Return Yoda enters the Dark Side Cave in the final issue of Star Wars: Yoda, in order to confront his failures and prepare for his most important role yet.

Ahmed Best Created A Whole New Lightsaber Form

Ahmed Best didn't know it at the time, but he had created a whole new lightsaber form - Ataru. In Star Wars lore, Ataru is unique because it depends on a person's strength in the Force, with a Jedi using the Force to boost themselves in Force-enhanced leaps. Yoda's duel with Dooku was tremendous, although at times the CGI struggled to make it a reality.

As Best notes, this would either be a phenomenal scene - or one that looked laughable. It's hard to overstate the importance of getting this right, because a fail here would have had a profound effect on Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. In practical terms, it would have meant George Lucas had to try to take a different approach on that movie's ending, because he wouldn't have been able to risk a negative reaction to the Yoda-Palpatine duel. Fortunately, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones played out well, setting the future in stone.

Source: Inverse