Lightsaber mashups

Ever since a two-minute clip of an overweight teenager pretending to wield a "Star Wars" lightsaber became the most popular viral video on the Internet, hackers with computer animation skills have been busily uploading famous movie swordfighting scenes to which they've added lightsaber visual effects and sounds. Nerdy bloggers and YouTube commenters have argued endlessly over which of these tricked-out movie clips are the best. Earlier this month, however, Gabe Delahaye, a senior editor at the website Videogum.com, posted a definitive Top Ten list.

Delahaye includes clips from recent movies like "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Gladiator," and "The Fellowship of the Ring," as well as from 1980s favorites like "Highlander," "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark," and "The Princess Bride." My favorite scenes, however, are from the two oldest movies on the list: Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" (1961), in which Sanjuro, a wandering samurai, wields his samurai sword (lightsaber) against a gunfighter, Unosuke, and his cronies; and the 1920 silent classic "The Mark of Zorro," in which Douglas Fairbanks does everything possible with his rapier (lightsaber) except light his cigar.

These, after all, are the sorts of movies that George Lucas was paying homage to.

Below: The climactic swordfight from "The Princess Bride."

Via Boing Boing.