No doubt someone has already pointed this out but "A long time ago" are literally the first 4 words in that film, why should it need to be futuristic? Also I would say as weapons go lightsabres are one of the most iconic weapons in any film ever not to mention they far surpass any and all swords we have today. Also a weapon that can destroy an entire planet in one blast (i.e. the death star) sounds pretty impressive to me.Nimzabaat said:Star Wars: Blasters in Star Wars turn out to be as effective as the projectile firearms we use, not even today, but at the time the film was made. They are actually less effective because every weapon fires the equivalent of tracer ammunition and tracers point both ways. Princess Leia is shown getting shot in the shoulder and it is only a minor injury. Lightsabers are pretty cool but, since Jedi seem to be awful at multi-tasking, a fully automatic weapon or area of effect is all you need. It is terribly convenient that nobody uses those in Star Wars. Don't even get me started on Stormtrooper armor, though I once had an idea of re-writing Star Wars and making the white Stormtrooper armor refractive so only a direct hit in a black area would hurt them.
While we're on the topic Men in Black, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Predator films are all set in the present day are they not?
Regardless I personally don't get the obsession with laser weapons in sci-fi. Sure they can look cool but if your film is only set a couple of decades or even a full century in the future why on earth would everyone have laser guns as opposed to following the actual current trend and end up with regular weapons with faster fire rates and some kind of advanced scope/ targeting or even just have drones do all their fighting for them? Although if you are going to put insanely overpowered weapons in a film why not do it right: