Lets talk all things Star Wars

[CopperRevan]

Considering Mandalorians build entire armies decked out in lightsaber resistant beskar, and that beskar isn't even the only lightsaber resistant material in the galaxy (there's also cortosis, armorweave, Zillo beast scale, and others) I'd say the lightsaber crystal is the more difficult of the two to find. Though as Joek3rr points out, the blade is a customizable thing for players and not exactly canon.

For the record, take my opinions as a grain of salt. I basically like OT Era lightsabers. To me, they perfectly fit into Star Wars and don't look out of place. I will say the Desert Wanderer lightsaber from the Obi-Wan show fits into that universe perfectly. That's the best lightsaber I've seen since the V2 in 1983. So I will compliment them on that one and give credit where credit is due.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

I watched a video from The Critical Drinker and he said right now SW is like the Titanic sinking and the band is going "We're going to play whatever the **** we want!!!" I think that pretty much nails it. Especially choosing to do a Rey-centric movie making her the person who rebuilds the Jedi when Luke was clearly the one who was to do that.

 

[Joek3rr]

I watched a video from The Critical Drinker and he said right now SW is like the Titanic sinking and the band is going "We're going to play whatever the **** we want!!!" I think that pretty much nails it. Especially choosing to do a Rey-centric movie making her the person who rebuilds the Jedi when Luke was clearly the one who was to do that.

And to call that era "The New Jedi Order"... It feels like a slap in the face. And I liked the Sequels!

Now the rumor is Dave Filoni's film is going to be called Heir to the Empire....

 

[VanPersie]

Thing is that in Jedi Survivor, you can customise how the saber looks.

A player doesn’t like that specific crossguard design? Fine, pick another part design you have found in the game.

They don’t like the crossguard idea at all? Fine, don’t use it at all in the game. I didn’t. I chose to use the Obi-wan and Graflex style designs during my playthrough.

 

[ghostryder]

 

[blewis17]

This was hilarious, but such a setup... a Lucasfilm employee giving a tour would know those were Don Post statues day one. But the "bit" was to show what a nerd Jordan is/was. On top of his various other tasks and responsibilities.

 

[Malibu139]

Thing is that in Jedi Survivor, you can customise how the saber looks.

A player doesn’t like that specific crossguard design? Fine, pick another part design you have found in the game.

They don’t like the crossguard idea at all? Fine, don’t use it at all in the game. I didn’t. I chose to use the Obi-wan and Graflex style designs during my playthrough.

For what it’s worth my son told me the crossguard in that game is the worst one. He said it was slow whatever that means lol.

 

[Halliwax]

For the record, take my opinions as a grain of salt. I basically like OT Era lightsabers. To me, they perfectly fit into Star Wars and don't look out of place. I will say the Desert Wanderer lightsaber from the Obi-Wan show fits into that universe perfectly. That's the best lightsaber I've seen since the V2 in 1983. So I will compliment them on that one and give credit where credit is due.

You know I like it a lot now too..

 

[CopperRevan]

You know I like it a lot now too..

It was funny timing because when the show came out i ended up taking a KR OWK 3 and a Romans emitter and combing it into the version of the show and i think you took a Romans emitter with a Korbanth and did the same thing i think, but yours was installed...Looked fabulous! Yeah, i really like that style even though i'm partial to the Skywalker Yuma and V2.

 

[VanPersie]

For what it’s worth my son told me the crossguard in that game is the worst one. He said it was slow whatever that means lol.

Each choice (single, double, split into two singles, saber with blaster and crossguard) is utilised as a style of fighting with pros and cons. Crossguard choice can block attacks slightly better but is slower in terms of how fast the character can swing it.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

A thing to remember about lightsabers... The actual "blade" is near-one-dimensional. More like a self-terminating laser (but it's not a laser), less than a millimeter across in section. Except, by special dispensation, the Darksaber, but I'm not talking about that thing. Dooku's prong and Ahsoka's and Cal's shrouds wouldn't be touched by the blade. They're just within the nimbus of charged particles the blade generates (and possibly help with the attenuation of such). And the emitters themselves don't need to be lightsaber-resistant, any more than lasers slag themselves when turned on. It's a highly-energetic, tightly-collimated plasma arc. The separate generating and emitting elements in the hilt are fine with what they're interacting with. It all comes together within the magnetic or other force (small 'f') fields within the emitter itself. The finished blade never comes in contact with any part of the saber.

And yeah, the handling characteristics are why they only ever caught on with Jedi (possibly specifically developed by Jedi from the simpler and more ubiquitous plasma cutter). Using one effectively (and not accidentally slicing off your own leg) is essentially a meditative focus, with Force-enhanced precognition, strength, and dexterity all coming into play. Otherwise, a member of the general public picking one up will likely be able to do, say, a short, stroke to open up a tauntaun's belly without much trouble, but beyond that would get tricky. All the actual weight is in the hilt (and probably pommel-heavy, at that, where the power cell is).

The blade, when ignited, imparts a strong gyroscopic effect as the arc node generator pairs cycle at near-lightspeed, creating, effectively, a spinning blade that allows a swing in any direction to be a cutting edge. The wielder has to be braced and ready for that before hitting the 'on' switch. And then, once activated, it's going to be difficult to get the saber moving, and in the direction one wants. And then, once moving in a given direction, hard to get it to change direction or stop. So the blade will take a lot of strength to get where one wants it, when once wants it there. Almost like it's incredibly heavy.

This effect can be reduced somewhat by higher "tuning" (which also shifts the color spectrum toward the shorter wavelengths). Inveterate tinkerer Anakin Skywalker found ways to disrupt the harmonic, so his final saber was blue-shifted, but more scattered in frequency. And then he did the same for Ahsoka's sabers. Those three would probably be the easiest-to-wield lightsabers ever made -- after the Darksaber, which has no spin at all.

 

[Joek3rr]

A thing to remember about lightsabers... The actual "blade" is near-one-dimensional. More like a self-terminating laser (but it's not a laser), less than a millimeter across in section. Except, by special dispensation, the Darksaber, but I'm not talking about that thing. Dooku's prong and Ahsoka's and Cal's shrouds wouldn't be touched by the blade. They're just within the nimbus of charged particles the blade generates (and possibly help with the attenuation of such). And the emitters themselves don't need to be lightsaber-resistant, any more than lasers slag themselves when turned on. It's a highly-energetic, tightly-collimated plasma arc. The separate generating and emitting elements in the hilt are fine with what they're interacting with. It all comes together within the magnetic or other force (small 'f') fields within the emitter itself. The finished blade never comes in contact with any part of the saber.

And yeah, the handling characteristics are why they only ever caught on with Jedi (possibly specifically developed by Jedi from the simpler and more ubiquitous plasma cutter). Using one effectively (and not accidentally slicing off your own leg) is essentially a meditative focus, with Force-enhanced precognition, strength, and dexterity all coming into play. Otherwise, a member of the general public picking one up will likely be able to do, say, a short, stroke to open up a tauntaun's belly without much trouble, but beyond that would get tricky. All the actual weight is in the hilt (and probably pommel-heavy, at that, where the power cell is).

The blade, when ignited, imparts a strong gyroscopic effect as the arc node generator pairs cycle at near-lightspeed, creating, effectively, a spinning blade that allows a swing in any direction to be a cutting edge. The wielder has to be braced and ready for that before hitting the 'on' switch. And then, once activated, it's going to be difficult to get the saber moving, and in the direction one wants. And then, once moving in a given direction, hard to get it to change direction or stop. So the blade will take a lot of strength to get where one wants it, when once wants it there. Almost like it's incredibly heavy.

This effect can be reduced somewhat by higher "tuning" (which also shifts the color spectrum toward the shorter wavelengths). Inveterate tinkerer Anakin Skywalker found ways to disrupt the harmonic, so his final saber was blue-shifted, but more scattered in frequency. And then he did the same for Ahsoka's sabers. Those three would probably be the easiest-to-wield lightsabers ever made -- after the Darksaber, which has no spin at all.

So when two blades clash. Is it the plasma energy of the blade that contact each other? Or is it magnetic containment field?

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Yes. Like charges repel. But the blades are alternating at the point of contact so fast there isn't time. So they'd kinda skitter against each other.

 

[Joek3rr]

Yes. Like charges repel. But the blades are alternating at the point of contact so fast there isn't time. So they'd kinda skitter against each other.

In that case, couldn't the magnetic containment field could be extended to help protect the hand, or the emitter from an potential lightsaber blades that might slide down?

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

That's what I mean, though. There wouldn't be sliding. The lightsabers won't be running at the same frequency, and wouldn't be synced anyway. With a static blade, like the Darksaber, the plasma arc is following the voltage drop from one node to the other, so the blade's a bit like a plasma chainsaw. Notably, it has a guard.


Modern sabers, with the more tightly collimated, 'spinning' blade, sometimes the edges that are hitting are both running 'out', sometimes both are running 'in', sometimes one's going one way while the other is going the other. But it's changing several billion times a second, so there'd, again, not be enough time for your blade to move more than infinitesimally one way or the other, and basically stays 'stuck' in one spot. It'd be like the rumble pack in your game controller until you pulled them apart again.

 

[Joek3rr]

That's what I mean, though. There wouldn't be sliding. The lightsabers won't be running at the same frequency, and wouldn't be synced anyway. With a static blade, like the Darksaber, the plasma arc is following the voltage drop from one node to the other, so the blade's a bit like a plasma chainsaw. Notably, it has a guard.


Modern sabers, with the more tightly collimated, 'spinning' blade, sometimes the edges that are hitting are both running 'out', sometimes both are running 'in', sometimes one's going one way while the other is going the other. But it's changing several billion times a second, so there'd, again, not be enough time for your blade to move more than infinitesimally one way or the other, and basically stays 'stuck' in one spot. It'd be like the rumble pack in your game controller until you pulled them apart again.

Wouldn't you say we see lightsaber blades sliding though? Like here, at about 1:01

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Sometimes I enjoy bending over backward to rationalize and find explanations for things. Other times, I just recognize something was just sloppy. Through the prequels, I was less and less impressed with the lightsaber fight choreography.

 

[Halliwax]

I’ve gone crosseyed

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

I’ve gone crosseyed

Excellent.

I'm big on continuity and consistency. It is, I feel, even more important for a fictional setting than a real one. The more internal consistency, the more a fictional universe follows its own internal logic and rules, the more real it will feel, and the more the audience can let themselves get invested.

I do not like the newer lightsaber props they've been using in the films and series. I'd much prefer they use fluorescent-painted steel rebar and composite the blade in in post. The OT 'sabers didn't light up a room, and the ones we got after that shouldn't either. That was one of the exotic properties of lightsabers that made them subconsciously interesting. They were intensely bright, but did not illuminate. Virtual photons or other short-lived exotic particles have been proposed that answer that. These more recent props with their fat, lit-up blades just look bad to my OT-trained eye. All the hundreds of times I watched those movies on VHS and laser disc conditioned me to how lightsabers "should" look and behave.

One of the things I like about Rebels is how slender the lightsaber blades are, albeit slightly exaggerated the other direction. It still felt more like watching Luke ignite his father's lightsaber in Ben Kenobi's hut for the first time than Rey igniting that same 'saber in TFA. At least an attempt to recreate the look of the narrow core and palely-colored nimbus surrounding it, and the erratic flicker caused by the spinning triangular pole with its two sides coated in movie-screen material.

I like the spaceships and want my own Millennium Falcon and the Force is something I've tried to use since I was small, but what viscerally pulls my attention and fascination like a moth to a porch light are lightsabers and blasters. Those, when done right, do more to sell me on something as Star Wars than most other trappings. And when they are done poorly, it just looks like a well-meaning but ultimately half-assed fan film.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

You would have to talk to Lucas and ILM about whether the lightsabers in the OT were intended to be brighter and that's all they could do, or whether that's actually how lightsabers should look. I'd would guess the former since Lucas would certainly have told them the effect was wrong in the Prequels.