WHY does Obi Wan's lightsaber keep shorting out in ANH?

And secondly, does this "short" that is going on with Obi Wan's lightsaber have anything to do with the fact that we actually see blood when he cuts off ponda baba's (is that his name?) arm? Every other time you see a limb cut off in the star wars universe, its a clean cut- no blood. So was his lightsaber defective or what?

When the lighsaber cuts through flesh, the intense heat "clauterizes" the wound, preventing blood from spilling out. Ponda Baba, as you may have noticed, is not a human, Zabrak, or Clawdite, all of which this happens to. Obviously, it's alien blood that refuses to be super-heated. Not a "defective saber".

I am sorry, but I disagree. I'm watching the special editions, and that if that's a mistake, it's a huge catastrophic one that George Lucas overlooked.

Jar-Jar was a huge catastrophic mistake as well, but he's been featured by George in two movies.

I find it extremely humorous that this entire forum is filled with members who read into EVERYTHING. Everything is broken down and dissected, and the most ridiculous ideas are tossed back and forth on a daily basis. People continuously think of ideas that explain continuity errors and "bad effects shots".

ROTFLMAO!! Isn't that somewhat hypocritical, seeing as how you're the one who refuses to accept the fact that it was a special effects mistake?

 

He's pointing the tip at the camera! Go and look if you don't believe.

 

The blood with Ponda Baba was a retroactive blooper, too. They just didn't think about the whole cauterizing thing until afterwards.

 

how can you be worried about it shorting out but not about the wire that goes up his sleeve from it? from what i know they actually tried to use some sort of internally lit rods as the blades on the original sabers, but it looked really bad so they colored in some other effects afterward. you can still see the wire going up obi wans sleeve to i guess what would be a battery of some sort. the reson it appears to "short out" is that the tip gets pointed directly into the camera lens and you see the top of the original saber/rod instead of the colored in effect. also it appears that they didnt color it in for the whole sequence as you also see it have lack of color a few times. vaders does this also at the end of the fight.

 

If you saw an early version of TPM as I did Maul did in fact have a cloud of blood shoot out from his waste as Obi-Wan cut him in half. Maybe not all blood is the same in the Star Wars Universe.. I mean they do have 900 year old little green men and robots walking around like its an every day occurance!

The lightsaber is a bad FX... I think I remember reading or seeing something about the FX back when the OT was re-released in the theaters and the lightsabers from ANH were discussed. Kind of like freeze frame problems they had with the doors.

 

I'm pretty sure there's only one version of TPM.

The lost limbs of the OT were much smaller wounds than Maul's, so I don't think they can be compared.

 

WHY does Obi Wan's lightsaber keep shorting out in ANH?

Special effects problem that needs some work.

 

Maul did spray blood, and it wasn't an early version. All versions except the real early version, in which he did not split in two.

I popped in my DVD. I see the blood spray. But that was such a huge and deep cut that a short spray was understandable.