• merc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    11 days

    Light Sabers are the core of Star Wars, and they’re some of the stupidist BS imaginable.

    You have this device where the blade is made out of “light” so has no weight to it, and that can cut through virtually anything, and you’re swinging it around like a maniac instead of just doing foil-style fencing moves to poke holes in your opponent from a safe range? In a world where there’s no armour and the merest touch of the blade cuts instantly, duels should be over in seconds of intense action like an olympic fencing duel instead of involving lots of big dramatic parries.

    Fighters should do virtually everything possible to stay outside the range of their opponent’s blade. Any part of that blade touches you and you lose a limb or have a hole straight through you. There isn’t even a safe part of the sword, like the flat of a real sword’s blade, and there are no handguards or protective hilts, so parrying is even more dangerous.

    But, no. Big swings of lightey-uppey things look “cool” so there are these extremely long fight scenes with glowy things hitting other glowy things and actors striking dramatic poses, plus guys with twirly double-sided weapons and other bullshit.

    Compare that to the fighting in Dune, where a personal shield can only be penetrated by something moving slowly. There’s a good concept that leads to an interesting style of fighting.

    • Björn@swg-empire.deEnglish
      10 days

      Honestly, that’s why I think the original fight of Obi-Wan vs Vader was so good. They kind of fought like that.

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10 days

      Think of the force like Jedis being able to anticipate movements and react ultra fast and it becomes less bullshit. If those fights played in slow-motion for normal humans, it would make sense that they could go on for longer without injury. Then a win happens with sensory overload or distractions - when a fighter misleads the other to believe an attack will be coming from where it won’t actually come, they get a killing blow.

      • merc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        10 days

        Think of the force like Jedis being able to anticipate movements and react ultra fast and it becomes less bullshit

        Not really because eventually you’re still going to take a hit if you’re inside the other guy’s striking range. If you stay outside and lunge in like a fencer you don’t risk that eventual injury / death.

        • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.worldEnglish
          10 days

          Sorry but that’s simply wrong. I have done two years or sabre fencing in my youth - it’s all about reaction time and correct execution of a parry. If you always knew exactly which angle to parry at, and had the reaction speed to execute this in time, then you could fence for a long time without anyone getting hit. You’d have to outsmart your opponent by slowly leading them into a trap where they have to execute a movement that throws them off-balance, so that you then can execute an attack that they can’t regain their balance to parry.