I want to take a break from politics to discuss something much more important and substantial: A realization I had about lightsabers.
Having grown up with Star Wars, I always liked to imagine having a real lightsaber. Anytime I’d have a clicky pen in my hand, I’d imagine the button deploying a laser blade I could use to slice through anything. But actually thinking out having a real lightsaber, I ruined the movies for me because I came to the realization that if lightsabers and jedi were real, a battle between two people with lightsabers would never look anything like they do in the Star Wars movies.
Now, the lightsaber battles are the coolest part of Star Wars — they’re the only good part of the prequels (though the Anakin/Obi Wan battle did go on so long it eventually became a little tedious). But how do those fights work? The two combatants swing at each other with their laser swords, blocking and parrying until one finally strikes the other. In other words, they use their lightsabers like swords instead of like lightsabers. This is moronic.
What makes a lightsaber different than a sword? That is a blade made of light? That’s just superficial; you still have a handle and a blade just like a sword. The blade can cut from any angle, but that adds little to the strategy of using it. What distinguishes a lightsaber from a sword is that it can extend and retract the blade.
In the movies, when do the jedi use this feature? At the beginning and end of the fight. They extend their blade before the fight, and retract it after the fight. Using a lightsaber like that is like using a gun just for pistol-whipping. Why not extend and retract the blade constantly during battle? For instance, if the opponents had his lightsaber up to block, why not just retract the blade to get past the guard and then extend it again afterwards? Really, in all the time they’re stuck pressing their lightsaber blades against each other, no one has thought, “Well I can just retract the blade to get out of this.”? In fact, why would you even extend the blade until the instant you would strike? All that does is make your attack easier to read and blockable. When you think about it, if the ability to retract and extend the blade is used properly, a lightsaber is unblockable.
When you realize this fact, this changes how a lightsaber duel would work. It in fact would never last longer than a single strike. If two combatants are in range, at least one of them will hit the other, and the winner is just who is quick enough to hit first. Force push or force lightning or something similar can be used to help tip the scales, but the actual lightsaber portion of the fight will be a single strike by extending the lightsaber blade as soon as the handle is pointed at the opponent.
The only way to say this would not happen is if a lightsaber blade comes out slowly, but it’s well established from the movie they can extend nearly instantaneously (or a single frame of film when watching the first movie). The only time I recall a blade coming out slowly was for dramatic effect when Darth Maul revealed his second blade (and if he hadn’t revealed it and just had it pop out during a strike, wouldn’t he have won easily?). So, going by the Star Wars universe’s own rules, they’re doing lightsaber battles wrong.
I can’t be the only one who has realized this? Maybe this information is suppressed to keep interest in Star Wars. Perhaps now George Lucas with some thugs will appear at my door and say, “You’ve ruined the only part of Star Wars I couldn’t ruin. Now I’m going to make a special edition of YOUR FACE!” But the truth has to get out there. I hope you all take this to heart and never enjoy a traditional lightsaber battle again because they are so logically stupid.
Now if Anthony Weiner had employed the light saber rule he might still today be flashing his sword on the inter-twits
can we go back to making fun of Weiner and Obama? This is too depressing.
creepy, I was thinking about this a couple weeks ago, that light sabers would be more like flashlights (that would burn/cut where the focal point ended) where the beam couldn’t act like a solid object.
must be the force
Light can’t deploy slowly. At the speed of light time stops so light is the same age as when it first appeared. So the next time some smarty pants professor tells you that the light from some far off star is 500 billion years old, tell him no it’s not. It’s the same age as when it left the star, numb nuts!
Anthony Weiner pulled out of office like a Jedi pulls out his saber? Nah Weiner jokes are too easy. I’ll have to hang with the ATMs that make the nation unemployed.
Why even go through all the hassle of fighting to be the first to extend your lightsaber into the other guys face? Just use the force to pull your opponent into or even through your lightsaber. Don’t use it to push him away or throw things at him, that’s just fighting like a girl. “Hey you, c’mere.” *shing*
I could never get over Obi-Wan having Luke practice inside the Millennium Falcon in space. If I were Han Solo I’d have shot that punk for jacking around with a damn light saber inside my ship.
“Light can’t deploy slowly.”
Unless you shine it through a super-cooled sodium mixture, in which case you can slow it to about 65 mph.
I think you’re assuming a lot about light sabre physics that you can’t know for certain. First, how do you know that a slender metal rod isn’t deployed as a conductor and is obscured by the bright light? The rod is collapsable from the tip (thus when they use it to burn through doors, it only partially extends).
Next, how do you know if it’s immediately hot/lasry enough to damage when first deployed? Granted, there was that scene at Mos Isley (I think that’s the spelling). It appeared to be immediately deployed and could cut, but how can we know all are manufactured to the same specifications.
I’m done getting my nerd on.
So this is why I only watch movies made before 1960.
“Lightsabers, or their plasma variants, simply won’t work.
Does this mean that Lucas is a science lightweight for having created the lightsaber? Of course not. Lucas is using the lightsabers as a device, a type of clue, pointiong out to you that what you should be focusing on are not the obviously impossible lightsabers, but the Jedi. The Jedi are more than hodded guys who whisper mumbo jumbo–they have the power to do something impossible, to actually break the laws of physics.
But how can you break the laws of the universe?
Of course you can’t–not in a real universe.
But it would be possible to break the laws of physics in a simulated universe if you could access the program creating that universe. This is what these lightsabers are really all about–cluing us in about not only the nature of the Star Wars universe, but by extension, our universe. So we need to focus on the Jedi–they are the device that Lucas is using to reveal the true nature of our simulated reality.”
— from Star Wars on trial: science fiction and fantasy writers debate the most Popular Science Fiction Films of All Time By David Brin
The first time I watched a light saber fight scene was when I was a kid. I asked my Dad why they didn’t just hold the business end to the bad guy’s chest and turn it on. He laughed and made me get him another beer. Now I feel vindicated.
While we’re on the subject what stops the light abruptly after 3 feet? Why doesn’t it just keep going like a flashlight?
Frank, you’re forgetting the superposition principle of electromagnetic radiation. You know how the light sabers bang into each other like normal swords and stop? That, too, is nonsense. But, Lucas is a idiot so I’m not surprised. His movies were also full of sound in a vacuum and non-ballistic motion, etc. He should have studied in school instead of doodling.
Rewatch the first movie, Episode IV — damned George Lucas math — and you’ll see there are scenes where you can see the saber grow. It’s not deploying at 300,000 km/s, that’s for sure.
We don’t know if the mechanism that deploys the saber can be used in rapid succession. The deploy part — setting up the length, width, & intensity of the light — may require more energy than maintaining the light. So it may not be possible to turn it on immediately after turning it off. Like the wait time for the flash on a small disposable camera.
Which means Kodak makes light sabers.
This was addressed in one of the books and used as a tactic by the Jedi Corran Horn. Won a sword duel by deactivating his blade causing his opponent to over-swing, leaving a vulnerability. The new trailer for The Old Republic MMO also has something akin to what you are suggesting. You are assuming that the enemy has only one means of killing his opponent e.g. the actual lightsaber. But what about projectiles, force lightning, blasters, etc. The blade is a blade and not a blaster because it is a defensive weapon, used to protect the Jedi and those around him from harm. I readily believe that deactivating and activating the weapons would probably play a far larger role. Remember that the force allows for precognition, so dodging or deflecting even an emerging blade would be possible and probably likely. With no blade, even for a second, you are extremely vulnerable to your opponents blade as well, can you be sure your strike will be an instant kill? If you both die, you still lose.
That’s why I think a deployed, telescopic rod makes sense. The light energy can only extend as far as the rod and can either make the cut or superheats the rod to make the cut. Of course, retracting a hot, telescopic rod into a handle may cause some heat issues, but I’m sure there’s a magic micro-cooling heat sink or something – maybe redirected into the power core to keep the thing charged.
@ Johnny45 – I always thought something similar: all they really need is a laser ice pick. Put it up to a guy’s head and flip the switch.
This, along with all other Star Wars technology questions can be answered by a single all appropriate answer:
Lucas is a [Censored] hack.
I mean I loved the original movies up to the point that the [Censored] Ewoks appeared, but you got to have a metric buttload of suspension to get through the idiocy you have to disbelieve to watch the movies.
The only reason Darth Maul’s second lightsaber blade came out slowly is because he was being a dick about it.
Y’all just go ahead with your lightsaber trickery. I’m wearing that armor stuff from Dune that blocks anything moving fast. I’ll do a slo-mo smackdown all over your jedi face, neck, chest and breast areas.
I can’t believe you forgot the obvious – the real weapon is the Force.
Perhaps now George Lucas with some thugs will appear at my door and say, “You’ve ruined the only part of Star Wars I couldn’t ruin. Now I’m going to make a special edition of YOUR FACE!”
If that were true, I don’t think he’d angry with you. In fact, I think he’d want to adopt you. “You’ve helped me to complete my life’s work of creating something that’s beloved by billions of people, and then destroying it right in front of their faces! MY SON!!!”
Noooooooooooooooooooo! That’s not possible.
Search your feelings.
Nonsense, because you could just make anti-Lightsaber armor out of a bunch of old disco ball mirrors!
I am INVINCIBLE!!!!
I’m with the cat on this one. Blindfolded on a cramped ship in space with everyone setting around nearby playing battle chess is no place to swing a light saber. I have seen enough pinata videos on AFV to know that isn’t a bright idea.
And what sort of Hack Air force lets an untrained kid with zero flight hours command a Xwing fighter? 10 min of jedi training is not a sufficient reason to give a boy a combat spaceship.
Hey, we’re getting away from Frank’s supposition. It’s not so much that the sabre wouldn’t work; it’s just light sabres would change the tactics. In truth, Samurai sword fights proceed exactly as Frank describes. The method in a Samurai sword fight was to circle and maneuver until one would discover an advantage, and with a single motion, draw his sword from its sheath and lop the other guy’s head off.
In the history of Samurai warriors, Samurai Toshiro Mifune is widely accepted as the best ever. Although just a Ronin, he enlisted six other Ronin who struck fear into the hearts of much larger foes. Let me just say that in a battle between Luke with his ghey light sabre versus Toshiro, it wouldn’t end well for Luke because humans aren’t supposed to be strip steaks.
Somewhere in the background stories it is explained that the x-wing controls are the same as a t-16. I guess if you’re good at shooting womp rats you can shoot imperial fighters.
So you would use your lightsaber identically to a gun, Frank? By that logic, swords in general are totally useless against guns! Think about what you are saying, man. Swords are awesome!
Plus, if Jedi can block laser fire with their lightsaber, surely they can block an extending lightsaber! Now, I’m not saying that Star Wars makes any kind of sense, Frank, I’m just saying that there’s no point in arguing with you about it if you’re going to go about this logically.
To sum up, swords are good and guns are evil. Everybody but NRA nutjobs knows that. What kind of website is this, anyway?
Actually, if it’s a lazer, it wouldn’t just go out 4 feet and stop. You’d swing it around and basically slice a huge gash in the building walls.
It’s not a website, Fly. It’s a hotel.
ok, its not about the science, as we know it and lightsabers. The reason they dont retract and extend the blade during fights is because it would be bad form. not to mention, Jedi and Sith can both block laser fire, from humanoid and robotic enemies, so the ability to “pulse” a lightsaber would be useless.
So why would telekinetic beings need swords to begin with. Just breath heavy and choke your opponent like a democrat economy. The first one to pass out loses.
Physics be derned, I want to flip somersaults with a little green guy on my back. Now that would be awesome!
FrankJ, If I can’t have my fantasy back, I will poke you with my light saber. /wiener
OK, I get the retracting tactic but why bother – just use the Force to turn the other guys light saber off! While he’s standing there with a WTF look on his face, carve him into Wookie snacks!
i think what Frank wants is the katana school that emphasizes the draw/cut from the scabbard. Lucas was thinking of samurai when he came up with the Jedi, but as with most of his efforts he missed by 12 parsecs.
@ Burmashave – you got that right. Yojimbo would make sushi outta every one of those jedis.
@Fly 28 and Jimmy 30: Website? Hotel? I thought it was an asylum.
Hotel – Asylum
to-may-to – to-mah-to
Thank you, Burma. Can we stop talking about Sci-Fi nancyboys and start talking about Toshiro Mifune and Colt Peacemakers?
I’ll start up our debate! My very pistol was a cap and ball Colt. Shoots like lightning but it loads a mite slow.
Ha! Crabby – we think alike. Maybe you’re really a Catty Old Bat.
Well I’m going to pretend that Frank was being entirely serious about his post, and continue in that same vain:
1) If a lightsaber performed in any matter similar to “light” as we know it, they wouldn’t get hung up on each other to begin with.
2) Most likely there would not be a way to contain them to a specific length, and on that note, why not just build a super long saber and then you could destroy your enemy easily.
3) There is one other advantage of a lightsaber of a traditional blade. From the style and the way the characters used them, one can glean that the light saber was considerably lighter and provided less wind resistance than a metal blade which allowed for some unique attacks, and quicker recoveries.
Putting that all aside, and sticking with Frank’s premise, there would still be a very good reason for starting with your lightsaber extended. If the other guy is faster or luckier, he’s going to get you when he turns on his saber, or he only will have to move it a couple inches to slice you, even if you dodge. If your lightsaber is fully extended, you can parry his “thrust”, even if it is only momentarily. Let’s not forget that the Jedi somehow posses the skill and speed to regularly block laser gun blasts with their lightsaber. This suggests that they could parry a lightsaber “stab” as it was turned on.
I guess if you’re good at shooting womp rats you can shoot imperial fighters.
Maybe womp rats have laser cannons strapped on their backs, too.
I want one.
“Unless you shine it through a super-cooled sodium mixture, in which case you can slow it to about 65 mph.”
And in which case, the freaking lightsabre is the least of your problems unless you’re wearing your carbonite jockstrap…
“I’ll start up our debate! My very pistol was a cap and ball Colt. Shoots like lightning but it loads a mite slow” Right now I’m shooting a replica First Model Dragoon and a Uberti .44 mag Cattleman.
I’m having the barrel of the Uberti engraved “Civility” and the Dragoon “Discourse.” I’m name the blackpowder piece “Discourse” because if you don’t do it right it just clouds the matter up worse…
“Maybe womp rats have laser cannons strapped on their backs, too.”
If they do, maybe we can use them to clear the freaking sharks with the lasers on their backs out of the secret lair’s pool…
“Let me just say that in a battle between Luke with his ghey light sabre versus Toshiro, it wouldn’t end well for Luke because humans aren’t supposed to be strip steaks.”
Yes, but Luke was a farmboy and the samurai said the farmers were the only winners…
Mac, if Luke was a farmboy, why did we never see him do anything remotely resembling farm chores?
Wow, you’ve just ruined 6 movies and dozens of video games with one small article. Party pooper.
“Mac, if Luke was a farmboy, why did we never see him do anything remotely resembling farm chores?”
Imperial subsidies paid his Uncle not to grow things. He was famous the world around for his ability not to grow things and people would travel in to hear him talk about how best to not grow them.
That’s a mere step above using slaves to grow things for you and only two steps above being George Lucas.
@ Shelby Yes you could swing faster but the swing wouldn’t have the same momentum behind it or you would be wildly off balance. Oh man … I’ve spent way too much time thinking about this! Damn you FRANK!!!!!!!11!!!!!!
Sure, retracting it seems like a fine idea, until you realize that the second you retract it the other guy, whose lightsaber is still on, is going to chop you in half before you can get yours turned back on.
But when all is said and done, THIS guy was the REAL hero of Star Wars:
http://www.cracked.com/article_18719_the-tie-fighter-pilot-who-saved-day-in-star-wars.html
Lightsabers were invented by men and were meant to be deployed only in a manner that made guys look cool while using them. This makes them the Members Only jackets or parachute pants of of that time and place, although wearing both at the same time would make a lightsaber duel to the death look totally ghey.
Then there was Obi-wan Stumpy, who tried to invent light nunchuks.
Why bring a saber to a blaster fight?
I cannot believe I’m the only one nerdy enough to know the following facts.
“Light” sabers are not lasers or any kind of light. The blades are highly energetic plasma. The blades are held by a very powerful magnetic containment field. The field is what allow the blades to parry each other (magnets, how do they work?) and why the blade passes reight through non-magnetically charged objects.
Franks criticisms of stupid jedi tactics is 100% right.
I don’t even like Star Wars, I’m a Star Trek guy.
This thread is hilarious, all the way through, but Frank’s main premise is still pretty valid. The only decent rebuttal I’ve seen is the whole “jedi can anticipate and block blaster shots, so they’d be able to anticipate and block an activating lightsaber as well.”
The thing I always wondered i why did it end at 3-4 feet? I used to imagine light saber battles involving swords that didn’t terminate their beam in some finite fashion. A couple of Jedi and Sith masters get in a tizzy, fire up their light sabers and unwittingly flay half a dozen Blanetthans in twine, somewhere in another galaxy far-far-away as their beams extend endlessly out into space in some prolonged battle. Sure, space is mostly void, but as you mentioned, these fights extended for minutes on end and they waved the things all over the place. Sooner or later one of those wayward beams is going to pass something way out toward infinity….
But as far as the other stuff such as turning the beam on and off, remember they built them from scratch – they were probably worried that if they dingled with the switch too much, they might break it and create more work for themselves (that is if they could survive the battle without it – which was highly likely based on how often they lost the things in the middle of a fight).
And of course, Jedi Knights were men of honor. I considered all the parrying and thrust to be insane also – but no more insane then British shock troops marching upon Yorktown wearing bright red and white uniforms standing in a long straight line making them much easier to shoot at by revolutionary soldiers hiding in the bushes.
And let’s not forget the force – if they tried your ‘switchy switch’ thing, the other guy would be able to sense it coming as with all those other nifty things the force helped them do without using their own senses. Sure, you could mess with the switch all you wanted, but the other guy would see it coming and react accordingly making it just an annoyance and an added labor to divide your attentions.
The part I never got was that if you could move stuff around, why didn’t you just hold out one of those flex finger hands and squint really hard like they were prone to do and focus your mind on pulling the atoms aparts in the other guy’s spinal chord using the power of the force? The guy falls to a lifeless lump – game over – move on.
This is why I like the Ryan Vs. Dorkman fan movies. They use much more strategy….like turning it off and on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NE5elL30w4 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-is63goeBgc
The only reasonable conclusion you can draw – with so many ways within their power to end any conflict decisively in seconds …. Jedi knights and Sith lords are just a bunch of drama queens!
In Reality, a Lightsaber Battle Would Never Last More than a Second
In reality, there aren’t lightsaber battles, for the good and sufficient reason that there aren’t lightsabers.
I like Treii’s argument that the switch is fragile and they’re worried about how often they turn it on and off. I can identify with that.
I also like the Cat’s argument that this place is either a to-may-to or a to-mah-to.
Ryan Vs. Dorkman was neat, thanks Hutch!
I have to admit that reading a post and 62 responses on the best way to have a light saber battle is a little depressing…even a little sad. Just sayin’.
What number would’ve made you happy, Bobson? 61? 22? I posit that there is no number that would please you because frogs cannot hold a lightsaber!
You just ruined that one part of my childhood that still managed to produce joy. Thanks.
When I got back from the Pacific Theater in ’78 I got to see the first movie. I thought about this back them, but I decided I was not nerdy enough to tell anyone that I gave the movie that much deep thought. Sometimes it’s best to just look at the People of Walmart and laugh…
there is no use to analyze them, It does them no good, and just frustrates you. Same with the movies…
Frank,
1) You don’t even have to imagine the on/off stuff: any history that you read about plain old earth swords will tell you that the point is much deadlier than the blade edges. All the flashy moves are called “stage combat”. And any Jedi that has two lightsabers and still can’t beat that ridiculous quarterstaff that Darth Maul had ought to have his license revoked.
2) In a somewhat related vein, I met a Top Gun pilot once who said that the dogfights in the movie by that name were realistic with the exceptions that the planes would be half a mile further apart and the average dogfight only lasts 90 seconds.
#4 – ussjimmycarter,
“At the speed of light time stops so light is the same age as when it first appeared.”
Hey, that’s right!
Light never gets old!
Genesis 1:3
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Isaiah 48:7
They are created now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today. So you cannot say, “Yes, I knew of them.”
Revelation 21:5
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Thanks! It took me 2 days to catch it, but that’s my ‘I learn something new every day!’ moment for the day! 😉
Fly, mess with the frog you get the tongue.
wow what a fascinating thread, your use of batsh1tcrazy to juxtopose the juxtaposition of willing disbeleif suspension is laudatory in its marvelous simplicity of brain function. I one hand applaud your effort and extend my stump of gratitude.
http://www.cheapchineselightsabers.com
This is awesome. Best nerd criticism of Star Wars ever! Also totally excellent way to create context for the ultimate George Lucas threat, “I’m about to make a special edition of your face!”
priceless
Curse you FrankJ and your accursed logic! CURSE YOU! (shakes fist)
Think bigger, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DzcOCyHDqc
Someone may have already said this…I’m not going to read all of these posts to see.
Simply put…it’s science fiction. Lightsabors don’t exist. Someone made them up as a story prop without explaining to us exactly how they work. Obviously, there is SOMETHING about how they work which prevents them from being used the way that you say.
Also, the sub-genre of Star Wars is called Space Opera. In Space Opera the emphasis is on the drama and the science rules are very, very loose. Space Opera is also the most popular variety of scifi because it’s a story, not a science lesson.
innominatus, you might want to read Dune before getting into a fight with any sort of photonic weapon while wearing a Holtzman generator shield…..when a lazgun meets a shield the results are…..impressive. (Not to mention the big FRIKKEN worm that just popped out of the ground an ate you cause shields are the Arrakian form of a dinner bell.)
So the Force, sounds in space, and proton torpedoes are okay, but not using the ability to switch a lightsaber on and off quickly in the middle of a fight isn’t?
Please. There’s lots more to bash in Star Wars than just that. How about this: “Star Wars: popularizing incest in America since 1977…”
#24 Burmashave says:
“In the history of Samurai warriors, Samurai Toshiro Mifune is widely accepted as the best ever. Although just a Ronin, he enlisted six other Ronin who struck fear into the hearts of much larger foes. Let me just say that in a battle between Luke with his ghey light sabre versus Toshiro, it wouldn’t end well for Luke because humans aren’t supposed to be strip steaks.”
Really? Toshiro Mifune best samurai? That name is of an actor who starred in a lot of Kurosawa films. He PLAYED samurai in MOVIES. I certainly hope your comment was a joke and not you trying to quote history.