Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Dreadwinter wrote:The thing with lightsabres is, any part of the blade is deadly. So really, whatever style makes you hit them more with the blade, is the best style for fighting with. (Not just the tip)

No-one has argued the tip is best to attack with because it is more killy. The point is more that it's on the end of the weapon, and so attacking with it gives you greater reach. Also thrusting is quicker than the kinds of swings Jedi attempt.

Also, as far as just stabbing a droid goes. The problem with that is, you might not hit the right spot to completely deactivate them and if you just stab in to them, you have to pull it back out or make another silly motion to get the blade out.

Or.

You could just make one swing at them, cut clean through them and move on.

But that's where I think people just aren't getting how a lightsabre would actually operate. The reason to have a big swing because it allows you to build up momentum, so that you could slice through a target. But we're not talking about a big, two handed sword here, we're talking about a weightless blade of energy. That droid isn't cut in half because momentum carries the attack through the target, but because the weapon just slices through.

As such, a quick thrust to kill a droid could be resolved by drawing the weapon out in order you wanted, including swiping it through in follow up exactly like tat big sweeping attack.

General Grievous is capable of wielding a lightsabre, but one thing that is clear is that a lightsabre requires the force to operate. So, did Grievous have The Force?

LordofHats wrote:Wait, different weapons are used in fencing? Can one person use a saber while his opponent uses a foil?

You could, but it's considered unsporting, and you'd get skewered by the foil (sabre tends to telegraph its moves).

Different styles use different swords.

There is foil, epee, sabre, etc. Practitioners of the Sabre are better called "sabreurs" than fencers - and it is ALL about "loony charges" at each other with the intent to cleft one in twain.
I have dabbled with foil (uni fencing club). Epee requires a finesse and fluidity of wrist that I cannot do. I also found Sabre to be amusing to watch.

Wtf? I start a thread, go to bed, and when I wake up its at page three?

chromedog wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:Been thinking about lightsabres lately. When you see someone fight with them, they're alway dealing blows from the side or top, as if they were using a healy broad sword or a cleaver. Not an extremely light-weight weapon. Wouldnt it be much more effectice to fence with them, poking at your enemy?
I'm not a sword fighting expert, and there are soooo many unlogical things in Star wars that this really shouldnt matter, but I cant whatch starwars anymore without thinking about that. Argh!

What do you think?

It'd called a light SABRE not a light FOIL.

Hacking is what one does with a sabre. Although stabbing also works. Emokin does it often enough.

It's also ILLOGICAL not "un"logical.

1. A sabre can be used for poking as well

2. Just because its called "sabre" doesnt mean you have to use it as such. If you called your gun "toaster" and followed the above logic, shooting the gun would be "wrong"

3. Yeah, thanks for pointing it out. I'll fix it.....

4oursword wrote:General Grievous is capable of wielding a lightsabre, but one thing that is clear is that a lightsabre requires the force to operate. So, did Grievous have The Force?

General Grievous had technical skill, rather than inspiration from the Force. All things have a connection to the force (barring the Jedi Exile and her force-severing shenanigans), though.

Melissia- thanks for posting the different Lightsabre combat styles. Wow, the names of the Ways are so self-referential it is painful.

In other news, I think in a New Hope Darth and Obi's battle is more fencing-esque then the other battles.

Whenever you see Luke fight, he doesn;t really know what he is doing, so his attack sand defenses are less refined, hence more slashing and hacking. In response, Vadar seems to be much more refined with his movements.

Then, the Prequels come along, and everyhting Jedi has to be turned up to 11.

The difference between a lightsaber and a sword is that a lightsaber is made of energy, a sword needs substancial force imparted to it to part flesh. A lightsaber will go through almost anything with little to no effort.

It can't cut through everything and not everything can be cut through at the same speed.

Lightsabres never made any sense. The combat styles are ridiculous. You have people swinging a sword in giant, telegraphed moves for no purpose. Darth Maul is wielding what can only be described as a quarterstaff where if you grab anything but the small middle section, you lose your hand. It seems that spinning in circles and constantly exposing your back to your opponent is a valid form of combat. And, Lightsabres aren't capable of stopping fast projectiles like bullets (as opposed to the incredibly slow moving blaster shots). And, even if you did manage to get the lightsabre in front of a bullet, you'd just melt it and then you'd have molten metal flying at you, which isn't much of an improvement.

But, they look really awesome. And, swordfighting in movies is always about what looks cool and not what is practical. So, sit back, employ your Willing Suspension of Disbelief, and enjoy the cool lightshow.

They make sense if you understand the force as a spiritual aspect.

If you only use real-world thinking sure, they don't make any sense. But having one's back turned doesn't really hurt much when you can sense exactly where the opponent is using the force.

Melissia wrote:

4oursword wrote:General Grievous is capable of wielding a lightsabre, but one thing that is clear is that a lightsabre requires the force to operate. So, did Grievous have The Force?

General Grievous had technical skill, rather than inspiration from the Force. All things have a connection to the force (barring the Jedi Exile and her force-severing shenanigans), though.

This makes sense, but I'm sure I read somewhere that a lightsabre can detonate if activated by someone other than the creator. Of course, Anakin took Dooku's blade and Grievous had four as trophies.

I imagine it could if it was designed to do so.

there are a wide variety of lightsabers. Even polearm styles.

Actually pinwheeling / slashing is easier with a weapon with deminimis weight and an extremely favorable center of gravity.

You'll also note when "the masters" go at it in Star Wars, there's much less of the flashy business. but yea, its all about rule of cool.

Except for Yoda, but even Yoda does it because he wants his swift movements to throw off his opponent.

I keep seeing people say 'weightless' with relation to lightsabers, and that is only partially true. While the blade of the lightsaber is, indeed, weightless; the lightsaber itself is pretty darn heavy. There's a good hefty power pack in there!

I think of it as a maglight (the big hefty police version) with a styrofoam blade... except the stryofoam blade is something like 2000 degrees Farenheit or so. It is hella awkward to handle.

If you are familiar with fencing... get a big maglight, put the batteries, and try and do fencing maneuvers with it. Fair warning, it will be harder than it looks.

What I've always wondered is why do Jedi use the darned things two-handed? If you use it one-handed like a scimitar, it actually rolls fairly well into those cutting sweeps pretty naturally, as opposed to the 'kendo' style which becomes quite clumsy without the weight of the blade to balance things out.

Vulcan wrote:
What I've always wondered is why do Jedi use the darned things two-handed? If you use it one-handed like a scimitar, it actually rolls fairly well into those cutting sweeps pretty naturally, as opposed to the 'kendo' style which becomes quite clumsy without the weight of the blade to balance things out.

Its integral in making the all important "wa wa sps wa heh heh heh you are not a Jedi yet..." sound they have to make when fighting.

A lot of jedi DO fight one handed. The two-handed grip comes mostly when parrying for many jedi.


Here's a soresu stance, for example:

Wow and I thought I was a star wars nerd because my brother and I used to play the decipher game and whenever a pic came up they used for a card name we would name it, I give a to all the star wars lovers in this thread.

Great thread, I just always wrote it off to 'rule of cool' as long as there is something to give suspension of disbelief I can dig it.

LunaHound wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:

LunaHound wrote:

Howard A Treesong wrote:Why do they even need to hold the lightsabres?

I dont know, I always thought a master Jedi could use force to hold like 100 light sabers simultaneously

but that would be too overkill. It wouldnt look cool anymore

but it would make sense.....

xD

Luna, you know perfectly well that posting a smiley face and an image is considered spam.

Oh for GODS SAKE I got banned again, for that post.
This is getting frustrating -.-

Anyways I always enjoyed the concept of a being with full released potential ( like Neo in matrix)
I imagine a Jedi master with maximum potential would be like beautiful art to behold and choreograph ( or can just have it obliterate a whole army alone )
Force Unleash is a good start to thinking outside the box, lets have MORE

Grakmar wrote:Lightsabres never made any sense. The combat styles are ridiculous. You have people swinging a sword in giant, telegraphed moves for no purpose. Darth Maul is wielding what can only be described as a quarterstaff where if you grab anything but the small middle section, you lose your hand. It seems that spinning in circles and constantly exposing your back to your opponent is a valid form of combat. And, Lightsabres aren't capable of stopping fast projectiles like bullets (as opposed to the incredibly slow moving blaster shots). And, even if you did manage to get the lightsabre in front of a bullet, you'd just melt it and then you'd have molten metal flying at you, which isn't much of an improvement.

But, they look really awesome. And, swordfighting in movies is always about what looks cool and not what is practical. So, sit back, employ your Willing Suspension of Disbelief, and enjoy the cool lightshow.

Yea, to you and me, normal people, if we tried all that we would die very fast, someone would figure out to just stab us in the backs when we spin. But they are very skilled in the force, which allows them to be Uberhumans/aliens. They can sense pretty much everything around them, and have reflexes that border on pre cognition. So if you had THAT ability, then you you would be able to do similar stunts as well. And to be honest, that would be friggin fun as all get out.

KingCracker wrote:

Grakmar wrote:Lightsabres never made any sense. The combat styles are ridiculous. You have people swinging a sword in giant, telegraphed moves for no purpose. Darth Maul is wielding what can only be described as a quarterstaff where if you grab anything but the small middle section, you lose your hand. It seems that spinning in circles and constantly exposing your back to your opponent is a valid form of combat. And, Lightsabres aren't capable of stopping fast projectiles like bullets (as opposed to the incredibly slow moving blaster shots). And, even if you did manage to get the lightsabre in front of a bullet, you'd just melt it and then you'd have molten metal flying at you, which isn't much of an improvement.

But, they look really awesome. And, swordfighting in movies is always about what looks cool and not what is practical. So, sit back, employ your Willing Suspension of Disbelief, and enjoy the cool lightshow.

Yea, to you and me, normal people, if we tried all that we would die very fast, someone would figure out to just stab us in the backs when we spin. But they are very skilled in the force, which allows them to be Uberhumans/aliens. They can sense pretty much everything around them, and have reflexes that border on pre cognition. So if you had THAT ability, then you you would be able to do similar stunts as well. And to be honest, that would be friggin fun as all get out.

PLus in a galaxy a long time ago, they never invented shotguns.

I dunno..... Those weird flying bug things in Episode 2 seemed close to shotguns. Granted, shotguns that blasted rings of weird gak, but close enough anyways

KingCracker wrote:I dunno..... Those weird flying bug things in Episode 2 seemed close to shotguns. Granted, shotguns that blasted rings of weird gak, but close enough anyways

The problem with shotguns (for Jedi) is that you can't block all the shot with your fancy toothpick.

Frazzled wrote:

KingCracker wrote:I dunno..... Those weird flying bug things in Episode 2 seemed close to shotguns. Granted, shotguns that blasted rings of weird gak, but close enough anyways

The problem with shotguns (for Jedi) is that you can't block all the shot with your fancy toothpick.

Why not use the force to block them, if you can control light sabers with your mind and pick up huge machinery with your mind why can't you block a few buckshot pellets.

Use the Force, worked for the 3 piles of gak lucas made

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

KingCracker wrote:I dunno..... Those weird flying bug things in Episode 2 seemed close to shotguns. Granted, shotguns that blasted rings of weird gak, but close enough anyways

The problem with shotguns (for Jedi) is that you can't block all the shot with your fancy toothpick.

Why not use the force to block them, if you can control light sabers with your mind and pick up huge machinery with your mind why can't you block a few buckshot pellets.

Use the Force, worked for the 3 piles of gak lucas made

In all the movies I've not seen them make actual psycho kinetic walls. if they could, why would they need their laser toothpicks in the first place.

They should actually be able to stop the bullets with the force.....

oh and why would they bother swinging a lightsabre (even using the force)? when they could just kill you directly (make your head fly away, rip out your brain/heart)?

That's using the Force directly to harm a living thing, which is apparently Dark Side. As opposed to just turning them into hamburger with a lightsaber, which seems to be okay. Go fig.

I had a real issue with the morality of the Jedi. Killing people is okay... so long as you aren't angry when you do it. Oh, doing it in cold blood makes it all better! The real dealbreaker for me was in a RPG; there was a force power that allowed you to drain the energy from a power cell... but using it makes you Dark Side, even if you're using it to empty the power cell of a blaster being aimed at a hostage. What. Ever.

THe morality of using force powers depends on the era. During the prequel era, "dark" powers were considered evil always no matter what; following Luke's rebellion thing, and his revived Jedi order, Luke decided that "dark" powers were okay as long as they were used in a just manner.

Some light-side Jedi actually used force lightning and force choke, for example, in Luke's era.

And Mace Windu was the one that held the true secret of lightsaber fighting-- he allowed himself to give in to his enjoyment of the fight while never letting it gain control over who he was. A pity they had to make him die in such a scrub way.

I had a lightsabre duel in the middle of a shopping centre food court. We saw some stormtroopers, so we went to WHSmith and brought some cheap sabres... It went well. Everyone lol'd, but there were more gasps than expected when we stabbed each other simultaneously in the stomach...

My fondest memory of Gamescom 2010 was sitting in the second floor cafe looking out across the main corridor to this little room on the far side where a man dressed as darth vader was standing talking to a storm trooper, after a few moments of heated discussion like 7 little kids dressed as jedi's stormed the room