Star Wars: This Is How You Defend The Ridiculous Crossguard Lightsaber

[SlightlyEvil]

I checked Wookiepedia (because no matter how much of a loser I may be, there are always bigger nerds out there) to see if the crossguard lightsaber had any precedent. The closest, seen here: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Crossguard_lightsaber, looks more like a sai than the broadsword look of the trailer, designed to tangle an enemy's lightsaber and possibly disarm them. The most obvious problem is apparent in both: the enemy's blade would be naturally directed into the corner between the emitters, which you may notice is not itself a lightsaber blade. Thus, the enemy blade would cut straight through the opposing saber, and likely a chunk of the enemy's hand too.

Come to think of it, given how often Jedi get their hands cut off, maybe this is some sort of mocking reference to that. Probably giving them too much credit.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Here is the thing, if two people of exactly the same style (doesn't matter which one) and exactly the same power and skill fight and one has a regular lightsaber and the other one has this abomination, the first one would have an advantage because he doesn't need to take care yo not cut himself up with the so-called "crossguard".

 

[Valkyrie1981]

Everyone just needs to chill out.... Everyone deep down knows what really is going one... midichlorians.... Everything is explained... Problem solved you are welcome.

 

[ryukage_sama]

4 winged dragons are totally a thing, also no winged dragons. How do they fly? Who the fuck cares, its a dragon. If I see a dragon in real life my first thought wont be "How in the hell do you fly with wings like that?" It'd be "Holy crap, its a dragon! Please be more Dragonheart and less Reign of Fire. Dragonheart, not Reign of Fire.

Haven't you watched "Flight of Dragons"? Dragons fly the same as a hydrogen blimp. Probably best not to mix lightsabers with dragons either.

 

[dreng3]

SNIP

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One thing that's always kinda boggled me is why nobodies used the lightsabers main aspect mid-fight: The on/off button.

...

Another possible move is simple: Turn off your opponents saber mid clash. Aka. While clashing, just reach a hand forwards to your enemies blades hilt and hit the off switch.

...

The problem will be you're fighting a jedi/sith, and they're force sensitive. A lot of people complained about how choreographed the prequel fights looked, but it always made sense to me: they already know what their opponent is going to do. This makes a lightsaber battle more like acrobatic chess than a conventional sword fight.

As for turning off your opponent's lightsaber... I want you to, first of all, think hard about getting your hand all the way to the hilt of your opponent's weapon without losing it. Then, I want you to forget about that because you've got the force and who needs hands anyway? I imagine there's a tiny force battle going on during every lightsaber battle where each person is trying to deactivate their opponent's 'saber with the force, while preventing their own 'saber from being deactivated. I bet the on/off switch is specifically designed to be easier to hold on than turn off for this very reason...

I don't believe that is correct, I actually believe that Palpatine supposedly mastered a fighting style, in the EU which has of course be retconned to oblivion, where he turned his sabre off and on in the middle of the swing, but of course he also tended to confuse and enrage his enemies as well so the pre-cog thing might not have worked perfectly.

Regarding the entire idea of shutting the opponents sabre off in the middle of a fight I don't think it would be a wise choice, seeing as most jedi must at least focus, and often gesture, to manipulate something through the force, a bad idea in the middle of a swordfight.

 

[Something Amyss]

Do people not know this has existed in Star Wars for years?

http://reallifecomics.com/

You mean the canon that's always been of dubious standing, and that is now no longer official at all? Not the best argument.

 

[Boba Frag]

I just wanted to raise a point, what makes the balance of the sword. It's not really the weight of the grip, pommel and hilt, acting has a counter weight. It's mostly the shape of the blade that has the greatest influence on the balance point. The distal taper of the blade is quite important. A sword like a katana, cut oriented, with little distal taper will be more blade heavy than an Oakeshott type XV [http://www.albion-swords.com/images/swords/albion/nextGen/poitiers/poitiers1.jpg] which is a cut and thrust but slightly more adapted to the thrust (and half-swording). It's only when you go with really complex hilt, like basket hilt, that the hilt really start to play a bigger role in the balance.

For referencing Oakeshott AND Albion swords, you are my hero, sir!

Lovely to see sword fans crop up here

 

[RJ 17]

Honestly I'm surprised that people are still having an issue with lightsaber designs.

We've already got swords, short swords, tonfa, whips (yeah...I was surprised too ), tri-bladed (apparently just an over-complicated and incredibly MORE dangerous version of the double-bladed in that rather than having a single over-large hilt, it's two normal hilts...connected by a small lightsaber beam in the middle), water-proof, and overly-long sabers (apparently for extra-large species of jedi and sith)...why stop there?
(source: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber)

I mean since we should all be in agreement that the practical application of an actual lightsaber would be absurdly suicidal and thus throw it all to the suspension of disbelief, I demand lightsaber nunchaku! Or a lightsaber chain-scythe! A pair of lightsaber sai, perhaps? Oooo! A full-on lightsaber shield! Like a knight's shield, only made out of lightsaber! You could vaporize your enemy with a single good shield bash!

 

[loa]

We can see lightsabers crossed putting pressure onto each other as if they are dense objects and not beams of light and we can also see that a lightsaber being rammed into a metal door requires force to move through the thick melting metal.
Those things don't move like flashlights would so it's not a stretch to assume that the lightsaber blade has some weight or resistance to it.

Also your whole point of the lightsaber having been impractical all along doesn't change anything about laser crossguards making it even more impractical and I think the whole outrage comes from the trailer desperately trying to do something "cool".

As for that 4 winged dragon tangent

Doesn't require me to suspend my disbelief of the thing physically being able to fly at all depending on the design since it's inspired by an actual thing.
Put 2 pairs of wings behind each other, nothing "preposterous" about it. Just don't put them on top of each other.

It's more like people calling bs on a chainsawsword -which is impractical because chainsaws are terrible for cutting flesh and put you at great danger of harming yourself if it rebounds when you hit a bone- that has a buzzing chainsaw crossguard.

 

[Aerotrain]

When are we getting a pogo-stick lightsaber to jump on your enemies' heads?

 

[Buizel91]

The real problem is that it serves no purpose. Any blow from a lightsaber that a crossguard would stop in a clash between two normal swords will instead slice through the emitters. You could argue that the hilt could be made from cortosis to prevent this, but if you have access to that, it would make more sense just to make the whole crossguard from the stuff.

Isn't there already a risk with all lightsabers that the the emitter could be sliced through? But due to the amount of training in the force they can kinda sense what there enemy will do? and where they will swing in order to deflect whatever is coming?

So isn't that just the same here? but instead of 1 emitter vulnerable there are now 3? i get what people are saying, that in a lightsaber battle if you swing your blade towards this blade, and move it down, u can slice an emitter. But even with standard lightsabers, we never see someone attempt to move the blade down to slice the emitter or cut the enemy's hand/fingers. In fact, the only time an arm or hand is cut off is when either they are stunned, or have there guard down. Or in Anikans case, a raged idiot.

Plus we don't even know how these new emitters will be used, i suspect they can be turned on and off at will for better deflection. Imagine if Anikan had this blade in Ep 3. He could of killed Obi-Wan when he had his hilt up against his neck.

 

[Nurb]

This would have solved the problem, even making them slightly offset.

 

[Wolyo]

For referencing Oakeshott AND Albion swords, you are my hero, sir!

Lovely to see sword fans crop up here

Wherever they's a post about swords, I'll be there. Wherever they's a misconception about balance, I'll be there...

Anyhow using the Poitier was the best option "Oakeshott type XV" is not really meaningfull even when you know what Oakeshott type are.

 

[FakDendor]

You know what *really* irritates me about this whole "controversy"? That releasing a contextless shot of a clearly controversial version of a lightsaber was a calculated decision on J.J. Abrams part to spark massive discussion and high-profile internet buzz. He knew some people would freak out. He *planned* on it. It's his *8($7# "Mystery Box" at work. Get everyone all hyped up without revealing a thing about the actual film. And that makes me most irritated of all.

 

[Nazulu]

This would have solved the problem, even making them slightly offset.

That's a much better design. Now why the hell can't these professionals come up with something as clever as this? I'm sure someone will point out some design flaw with it, but it's definitely a hell of a lot 'cooler'.

 

[Infernai]

SNIP

SNIP

Both of these are good points that I hadn't considered before.

 

[Something Amyss]

You know what *really* irritates me about this whole "controversy"? That releasing a contextless shot of a clearly controversial version of a lightsaber was a calculated decision on J.J. Abrams part to spark massive discussion and high-profile internet buzz. He knew some people would freak out. He *planned* on it. It's his *8($7# "Mystery Box" at work. Get everyone all hyped up without revealing a thing about the actual film. And that makes me most irritated of all.

It's no different from reveals of Maul in Episode 1.

 

[Zydrate]

I'm neutral until I see it in action. If they can make combat with it look cool, that's all I care about.

People complaining or "arguing" about this lightsaber are just looking for things to complain about because nothing will be good enough to live up to their precious original trilogy

I also concur with this bit.

 

[FakDendor]

You know what *really* irritates me about this whole "controversy"? That releasing a contextless shot of a clearly controversial version of a lightsaber was a calculated decision on J.J. Abrams part to spark massive discussion and high-profile internet buzz. He knew some people would freak out. He *planned* on it. It's his *8($7# "Mystery Box" at work. Get everyone all hyped up without revealing a thing about the actual film. And that makes me most irritated of all.

It's no different from reveals of Maul in Episode 1.

Of course it is - the promotions for episode 1 were't just of a double-bladed lightsaber without showing the characters, setting, or any plot whatsoever.