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[Putnam]

if it's yellow i'll flip my shit

[Reelya]

*pink lightsaber for Rey

[Strife26]

I would love to see a double bladed saber. Or any kind of exotic saber, really.


Anyone else think that Dooku and his angled saber were the coolest thing in the prequels?

[Starver]

Addressing recent (non-Darth) issues:

40 million shares of anything is rarely Mickey Mouse money...  Especially if they're Disney shares...

George has apparently apologised for likening the selling of the franchise with "selling his kids to white slavers", of course, but apart from some somewhat unwise words used I can appreciate the sentiment.  (We've seen similar thoughts from other people, like the Minecraft guy I think...  Less provocatively put, though.)


The 'problems' with Eps 4 and 6 were put down to the need to wrap things up (the first as a presumed stand-alone, the second as a definite trilogy conclusion... although the remastered conclusions made an even more saccharin-sweet ending... just because Lucas could).  Ep 5 was good because it didn't try to close the story off on a glorious "they win!", knowing that 6 was around the corner to do that with.

Ep7 is going to be followed up (twice!), so it can be better than its OT, by the same judgement.  But that doesn't really explain Ep1 (unless they really weren't sure, at the time, if the PT would actually fully happen?  ...I don't think that was an option).  PT's third installment could still afford to be bittersweet, of course, in order to presage the OT's situation.

It remains (a long way off!) to be seen if they can make the S(equel)T's third instalment will try to become the "and they all lived happily ever after" of the OT's conclusion or leave us wanting more (would definitely be good business-sense to guide the public towards a post-ST spin-off, of some kind, perhaps something with the reliable legs of the Stargate serieses... or SG-1, at least).  It'd have to be balanced well to satisfy us as to a 'conclusion' without going down the whole "celebrations across the galaxy!   ...and they all live happily ever after!" montage.  At least a Flash Gordon-ending (some presumed fallen Sith/Ren/whatever's lightsabre is picked up out of the rubble by a suspiciously familiar hand), although they'd be tempted to put it in as a post-credit sting, I know.


I personally think a pink lightsabre would be...  kitsch.  Too much of a "Pink Ranger" vibe.  Yellow (especially with the OOC back-story) could work.  They've also messed about with many colours (including white, outlined-black and 'rainbowy') in spin-off depictions of various canonicities.

There's very little new they can do to surprise us (Purple was an actor-driven choice that just happened to work well... could easily have been laughably disastrous... if YMMdoesn'tV already, on that point).

But Dark blue (actual #00F, rather than towards the #0FF Cyan/light-blue) could be interesting, for a number of reasons, if done well and with the right context, if it can be made to work on film.  But any colour could be hated by different subsets of fandom.  "Trying too hard to be different!" vs "Too generic and traditional!"


The double-blade that Maul had looked a bit too "trying too hard to be different", for me.  The angled handle for Dooku a bit too contrived too (probably to be reminiscent of a curved cutlass/cavalry-sabre), and didn't seem to have a combat advantage or additional possibilities.  (A curved plasma blade might have been useful, but then asking too much of the presumed science behind the technology.)  Kylo's cross-guard blades gives us the concept of a more ancient broadsword-like design, and works in that respect, but (unless I missed it) he didn't actually use the cross-guards/quillons the way a metal type would have been used.  I also can't see a knuckle-bow/shell-guard/basket-guard variation working in blade-plasma-stuff.

I suppose they'll try a sai-like forward-prongs for trapping/blocking, at some point.

Or do you mean 'double bladed' as in a double-knecked guitar?  That'd be...  not sure.  I think I'm tending towards the phrase "trying way too hard to be different", but don't want to look ungenerous.

[Egan_BW]

What about a fencing style with light saber and light dagger?

[Reelya]

Yeah, pink lightsaber was my little joke, because a bunch of feminist absolutely love Rey's character. She's a deliberately feminist character, that's for sure (rescues herself from being a damsel in distress before the guys can turn up). So, just my little joke, because you can imagine the widespread outrage if they attached some girly-girl trope to Rey at this point. Of course I don't want them to ruin Rey's character, but you can imagine the impending 'net fireworks if they did.

Egan, An offhand light dagger sounds great, but they need to have a crossguard to make any sense. Giving another character a tiny version of Kylo Ren's sword isn't going to work.

But personally, I don't think making a zillion variations on the basic light saber is really the way to go. They're meant to be a thousands-of-year-old weapon. They should have reached design perfection already. Making "better" light sabers implies heavily that the standard design was somehow flawed for thousands of years. Dooku merely had a differently-shaped handle, and given that each force user is meant to build their own, that's acceptable in the plot. The technology and function behind it was the same.

The force baton used by the Riot Control Stormtrooper in episode 7 suggests a problematic idea however: that's a non-light-saber material that can block a light saber. Why aren't people already making cross-guards for light sabers out of that stuff? It would protect the hands, and no risk of self-cutting, as Kylo Ren's sword does. It's either a new plot hole they added or the tech. for the riot baton must be a new development.

[Egan_BW]

Hmm, a bellguard made from that lightsaber-resistant metal.

[Reelya]

Wow, I edited in the same idea before I read your post there. Great minds must think alike. We can only assume that stuff is a recent development in Star Wars universe.

[Egan_BW]

Non-lightsaber things have been able to block lightsabers since episode 6.

[Strife26]

Corti-somethingoranother vibroblades are good enough to duel light sabers with, I believe.



Also, best option for episode 8 is for the Colonial Marines to show up for a surprise Aliens crossover

[hector13]

Cortosis.

[Starver]

Wow, I edited in the same idea before I read your post there. Great minds must think alike. We can only assume that stuff is a recent development in Star Wars universe.

Or suppressed.  We know that the tech exists (edit: ninjaed) but how widespread?

Jedi council wouldn't (even in its beneficence) be too keen to have anything that's sabre-proof, just like they don't encourage non-Jedi to take up their own traditional weapon.
The Sith Lord of a (theoretically) Jedi-less Empire wouldn't be, either.  It's their domain and their prerogative, after Order 88/whatever.
But the First Order knows that there's still some experienced Force opponents on the books, even if they're not that active, so as long as they can restrict the plasma-riot-baton thingummy to their own forces (mostly justified in it being also useful against non-Jedi) it might be a useful countermeasure for their elite mooks.  (Ok, so they were probably expecting Luke or Leia to be the ones, not a random guy with no background in the art or a heretofore missing Force-savant whose metal wasn't even tested against the Riot Control trooper...)

And I'll have to see if I can find out the tech behind some of the Podracer 'power linkages'...  Possibly it (sabre-like) holds some separately floating modules together (if it isn't just a separate tractor/repulsor-based tech), seems to transfer power, and yet can go through the ears of a Gungun (albeit one protected by inbuilt latent force-use, or just comic-relief styled plot-armour) without killing it by any number of ghastly ways.

With the sabre being traditionally tunable by the Jedi who wields it (blade capable of cutting through blast-shield, or a safely hand-holdable solid so that it can even be used as a viable crutch), either by the sheer Force of mind or some dial on the hilt right next to the one that adjusts its length, I imagine that Kylo's crossguards could be non-self-cutting (as required).  (Ditto the power-linkages, if not intended to be flesh-searing... Or safety-dampeners connected to sensors that detect accidental interuptions.)

The big problem with equating a lightsabre with a big dumb (albeit shaped and possibly sharpened) lump of iron is that a lot of swordfighting techniques (outside of show-fighting, where you need to be careful) rely upon the sheer mass of the sword.  Unexpectedly being hit by the weighted pommel and cross-guards/knuckle-protectors is a valid move if the one doing so doesn't let their own guard down.  The finely-tuned physical device that is the hilt doesn't have that much of a heft to it (at best, it's like using a torch... and not one of those honking big Maglite ones that security guards and the like tend to go for, weighed down by the whole string of D-sized cells inside its ruggedised casing) and we're never really told anything about the 'weight' of the plasma blades.  We're left to assume that they probably contribute less inertia than styrofoam would, the damage being the 'burn' and the strength (both physical and mental) of the wielder as he/she forces it (again, perhaps both physically and mentally) against the opponent's similarly adamantium-like blade.

[mainiac]

The Jedi didn't run the republic.  Hell, Coruscant barely ran the republic.  If you wanted to make something during the old republic to stop a lightsaber no one was going to stop you.

[Rolepgeek]

I dunno. Lightsabers seem like they'd be at least as hefty as a good sized flashlight to me. Not as heavy as a metal sword, though, certainly.

Ren's guards seemed ridiculous simply because it's hard to imagine them functioning well as guards, with the way the metal bits stick out before becoming plasma-y.

The film was...less than I had hoped. Probably more than I should have expected though. :/ Film series of my youth, why must you function off of nostalgia?

Maybe the real reason I was disappointed is because they took away Thrawn.

[hector13]

Well Thrawn was never really in any of the canon things ('cept maybe the cartoons that I've never watched for some reason...) and Disney were all like "NO IT'S OUR THING NOW YOUR STUFF DOESN'T COUNT, JERK! NYEH "

Also, lightsaber. Light doesn't have mass (does it? I'm not a physicist!) so... no heft. The hilt, aye, all metal and crystals and shit, but not the blade.