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[RedKing]

Ok, am I the only one not so goddamn fanboyish that I actually fanboy-squee'd the whole trailer?

Look, the vast majority of Expanded Universe "canon" is shit. There's no other word for it. The Timothy Zahn stuff was pretty decent, and I wouldn't have minded seeing Grand Admiral Thrawn make an appearance. But the rest of it, the Yuuzhan Vong and all that other stuff -- TOTAL SHIT.

And it was a trap. No matter how faithfully they had tried to adapt Expanded Universe material, they would have had to edit something in the sake of actual story-telling, and then the canon police would be all over them even worse than history buffs picking apart a war movie or period drama.

Personally, I LOVE that this is an all-new frontier. I love not knowing what's coming next. I love that Abrams is reinterpreting an old classic into a new form (I really liked what he did with Star Trek).

Yes, the Stormtroopers look different. THEY'RE STILL STORMTROOPERS.
Yes, the X-Wings look different. THEY'RE STILL X-WINGS.
Yes, the lightsaber is a bastard sword. IT STILL GOES SHOOSH VRAAOOOWWW.

That's all I need. That, and acting better than Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman.

[Sirus]

* Sirus offers RedKing a fanboy high-five o/

[Mech#4]

X-Wings have changed design before haven't they, or was that part of the expanded universe? I remember something like a slightly smaller version of the X-Wing before the standard type. I'm not talking about the Z-95 Headhunters.

[Gunner-Chan]

Look, the vast majority of Expanded Universe "canon" is shit.

What "Canon"? They tossed it in the trash can. Literally nothing is canon besides the movies now.

[Bauglir]

Yeahhhhh, none of that stuff's what worries me (I largely agree with you about the Expanded Universe, for example). It's what I fear is coming next that bugs me. Although, that said, I'm just being pessimistic. It being Disney, I should probably not expect more Empire Strikes Back, but instead should expect a take on the setting that kind of does what George tried to do with the prequels in terms of appealing to kids, only competently and with far less unintentional comedy. So, you know, actually pretty decent stuff.

[RedKing]

Look, the vast majority of Expanded Universe "canon" is shit.

What "Canon"? They tossed it in the trash can. Literally nothing is canon besides the movies now.

Exactly! Which is fantastic! Because the stuff that was post-movie canon before was garbage (other than the Clone Wars cartoons, which I believe have a semi-protected status of sorts) and the new Rebels cartoon, because Disney.

@Bauglir: Yeah, that's what I'm expecting too. You're not liable to see another one as grim as Empire, at least not a main-arc film. But Disney has multiple levels of care for their properties. They have the shovel-fed kiddie bullshit like their direct-to-video movies and a lot of the tweener stuff on Disney Channel. Then they have their feature stuff, which they fund and market very, very well. I'm optimistic because frankly, no one except maybe Uwe Boll could have done a worse job with handling this than George Lucas himself.

[Reelya]

I don't think the lightsaber hilt really contradicts anything. If you can make a big lightsaber, you could probably make a small one. We already have Darth Maul's, that's basically two lightsabers joined together (it has a long hilt with enough room for 2 plasma projectors, so it's still compatible with the original movie's science). Consider the length of a normal lightsaber blade vs the normal hilt length. Scale that down and make smaller versions of the apparatus, which fit sideways next to the normal blade, and voila you have a hilt made of little light sabers.

As you can see each small lightsaber actually has a small hilt that's not in the way of the main beam projection unit, so this is fully compatible with the existing Star Wars tech. It's just an engineering change, and does not require any new physics. Each of the metal hilts / beam length ratios is within know SW limits:
http://www.theverge.com/tldr/2014/11/28/7302383/lets-talk-about-the-new-lightsaber-ouch-hands
Whether this would actually be practical in a fight is another matter

[Flying Dice]

See, there's the balance.

Pros:
1. Lucas' filthy stupidity will never touch the franchise again.
2. All of the terrible EU material is trashed.
3. No more Lucas.
4. J.J. Abrams, which means decent action-y bits.

Cons:
1. As above, even if Disney will do a better job than Lucas, that doesn't necessarily mean 'good'. Also:
2. Disney will never make another Empire.
3. J.J. Abrams, which means that canon will be reduced to a series of references to rope in the fanboys and plot will be mostly eclipsed by action.
4. This trailer is an eyesore. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer. This trailer!

--

Also, that lightsaber with lightsaber hilt is fucking stupid for one reason:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Know what happens when that hilt catches the blade of an enemy lightsaber? The bit that projects the crossguard gets cut off because it isn't flush with the hilt and lightsabers aren't lightsaber-proofed. So it's worse than useless because it inspires false confidence while also making it easier for the user to cut off bits of themself while twirling the thing around.

[Descan]

Less "Is that possible" and more "that looks horribly stupid" and more "those are next to useless, any saber it stops could just cut the hilt at that corner anyway, so it's doing nothing, or worse, guide the blade into the hilt, so doing worse than nothing."

[Cptn Kaladin Anrizlokum]

Yeah, a lightsaber like that requires more skill while not really protecting you anymore than a regular one. It's more impractical than anything though...

[Reelya]

I blame capitalism in the SW universe. The company that makes lightsabers is always trying to redesign the thing to get you to buy a new lightsaber, so they come up with designs like that, although they also have designs that died on the drawing board like a helmet with two lightsabers embedded in it like horns.

[Bauglir]

Well, if I had to defend it, and I apparently do, then provided you had some manner of supernatural reflexes and skill you could use the right angle the blades form to pin the opponent's blade and disarm somebody pretty effectively without risking the handle. Of course, since all your opponents have the same skills it's only helpful for that when they can't see it coming for whatever reason, so you presumably only get one shot per opponent who's not heard of you. I'd say it's marginally more useful than Maul's.

I blame capitalism in the SW universe. The company that makes lightsabers is always trying to redesign the thing to get you to buy a new lightsaber, so they come up with designs like that, although they also have designs that died on the drawing board like a helmet with two lightsabers embedded in it like horns.

I would buy dozens of those helmets, even if lightsabers were already real. LASER VIKING

[Eric Blank]

Laser minotaur.

Charge!

[Sirus]

Laser unicorn?

[Itnetlolor]

When do I get my light chakram? Or light chain-blade? Or light gunblade? Or light nunchaku?