ST Kylo Ren's Lightsaber

why do old dudes ride around in muscle cars? theyre heavy and clunky and loud and not smooth running like brand new little toyota scions. maybe this sith dude or sith dude wannabe is going retro, maybe he found it somewhere, dusted it off and wants to go old school on people. gives him a bit of character.

 

I know you were being facetious in an attempt to attack people who don't like the design and derail the discussion, but I'll bite. Lightsabers serve a storytelling purpose. They're the "Blaster Age" version of swords used by Lucas' knights or samurai, which in the real world became extinct because they weren't (economically) viable in the age of cheap firearms. Lightsabers make the Jedi romantic, turning them into knights in a practical sense but even more importantly symbolically. Without them they're just wizards, where the Force is just a stand in for whatever magical medium you want to use to drive your system. We're introduced to lightsabers as "an elegant weapon for a more civilized age," and that's also what they are. They are a visual cue to the aesthetic and cultural decline perceived by the characters inhabiting the setting (or some would argue the shift to practicality and survival over aesthetics). We later get to witness that shift ourselves thanks to the PT.

More generally, while many things in Star Wars are designed to look cool, they also serve a thematic purpose. This is one of Star Wars' most recognized artistic achievements. The gray color themes and angular aesthetic of the OT and the seemingly endless number of identically-armored soldiers are meant to evoke feelings about the GFFA under the Empire. The sleek, yellow N-1 starfighter says something about the Naboo and warfare in the pre-Imperial era. The glittering spires of Coruscant suggest a civilization near its peak, but in a certain light they become dark and sinister. The images of the PT and OT serve purposes that very much transcend looking cool. Even Maul, who has basically no personality to speak of in TPM and was designed to "look cool" is a personification of Yoda's "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate." (Cute aside: my kindergarten teacher friend says that Darth Maul is still near the top of her classes' scariest monsters list every Halloween)

I think it's tragic that so many hardcore Star Wars fans are incapable of appreciating these things about the movies they're a fan of, to the point that they'd say that the purpose of everything we see in Star Wars is just to look cool. Or are you guys really just saying that because it's a convenient defense for something that appears to really be there just to look cool?

One of the questions I had about the ST was what direction JJ and Co would go aesthetically. Would the post-Empire GFFA (which we now know is not the entire state of things in TFA) see a return to a pre-Imperial "Classical" aesthetic or become more futuristic? What would that say about Lucas and Abrams' vision of how civilization responds and recovers from the trauma it's been through? In either case, a broadsword, which inevitably conjures up a connection with pre-industrial culture for the audience, doesn't seem to fit. A Desert Eagle type of gun would look out of place in traditional Westerns, even though it's a gun and for most intents and purposes would serve the exact same role as a Peacemaker. Eastern swords typically look out of place in Western Medieval settings, even though they serve practically the same purpose and there are countless ways one could justify the crossover.

So to me, whether the broadsword saber is practical is really not the question. The question is whether it's out of place. For it to fit, it should be expected to carry some thematic weight, the same way the N-1's visual differences from an X-wing does. We can't really know if it will or not until we have a context for its existence. If it is a visual cue that reflects the Jedi and/or Sith going back to their roots, for example, it serves an artistic purpose beyond looking cool. I think that's what doubters are hoping for, and I even think many of us would consider that an interesting story. It's just that right now that's almost entirely speculation, and because Disney and JJ are not Lucasfilm and Lucas, it's rational to be skeptical..

 

Yeah that will do it.

 

Bumping this post so it doesn't get lost in the discussion.

This saber isn't a brand new thing.

 

I'm not a fan of saber even though it looks cool as an FX component.

 

The notion that a lightsaber crossguard/vent system is somehow less practical than a double bladed lightsaber doesn't make any sense. I mean, crossguards are a real thing that actual functional swords have had (and for the "the saber could just slice right through the base" critics, there are plenty of design possibilities where that wouldn't be the case, ranging from the saber being one unified thing being "vented" out the crossguards due to instability or crude design, to the crossguards being made from one of the numerous metals that are resistant to being cut by a saber), but absolutely nobody has ever used double bladed swords in real combat (and no, staffs aren't at all equivalent, because staffs dont chop your hand off if you happen to touch anywhere but the middle 30%). The simple fact is that a double bladed lightsaber would already be far more dangerous to the user than this thing would be, and in the real world a double bladed sword would also be totally nonfunctional, no matter how supernaturally good one's reflexes or skills. Any criticism that starts with "but that doesn't look practical" has to at least acknowledge that practicality has not been the driving impetus in lightsaber design for some time.

But that doesn't mean that double bladed lightsabers aren't cool. They absolutely are, and for the fight choreography in TPM it absolutely worked. But it was just that, good choreography, and taking an idea that fundamentally started with "hey wouldn't it be cool if this guy's lightsaber had two blades instead of one" and then working backwards to come up with a way to make it look workable in practice. And really, that whole philosophy of "start with something cool, then work backwards to justify it" has informed a lot of Star Wars design, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Star Wars should look cool. This isn't hard science fiction, its a grand mashup of awesome stuff throughout the ages, taking the best of westerns and samurai and ww2 films and science fiction and combining them into one glorious combination. That's not to say that there can't be fun in diving into the details to figure out how it all fits into a coherent whole, but at its core, "it only looks that way to be awesome" is not really a damning criticism of something in Star Wars.

And In the case of this board sword saber, I do think it looks cool. In the same way that traditional sabers evoke Katana, and Dooku's saber evoked Fencing, this saber makes me think of Braveheart and Excalibur and Game of Thrones. It feels medieval. When I look at this saber, combined with the way this guy sort of lunges, hunched over like a feral beast, pulling it out quickly as if to strike...I don't think this guy is going to fight anything like the prequel style combat where guys spin and flip around. I think this guy is just going to start wailing on his enemies. This is not a finesse weapon, this is a weapon of brutality and pure blunt force and big sweeping attacks reminiscent of Vader in ESB. When combined with the blade itself, which looks unstable, almost on the brink of explosion, and the sound it makes which sounds almost like a lightsaber screaming in pain, and I just get a sense of pure uncontrolled fury. To me, it feels very Star Wars. More than that, it feels very Sith. I absolutely do think this thing is a Sith relic of some kind, an older design of lightsaber, less refined, harder to control, dangerous to wield...but also powerful and terrifying to face.

If others don't think it looks cool, then that's fine too. Aesthetics are always a matter of personal judgement. If someone simply says, "you know what? I though double bladed lightsabers looked cool, but this looks dumb", then even though I disagree I can't reasonably argue. It's when someone says "double bladed lightsabers are way more realistic than this" that I have to raise an eyebrow, because a.) no, they really, aren't and b.) "realism" has never been the primary driver of Star Wars in the first place.

 

i havn't given my opinion of the saber yet, so i'll say i don't like it. It would be no time until someone cut some of their fingers off. It's basically like they wanted a new saber because the prequels had the double bladed and the curved hilt so they came up with this.
so i can't see a practical purpose no.

 

look i said it right before aotc and ill remind everyone now. i came up with the idea first: Flamesaber!

 

Guys we have to remember these people who can use the force have super,super,super,super human reflexes and senses. I don't think there is any possibility of the new baddie slicing his own hands off using the lightsaber.

 

I agree. If Maul didn't cut himself to bits while flipping like a gymnast and twirling around a double bladed lightsaber like it was a marching baton, then handling a crossguard should be very doable.

 

Oscar winning designer Roger Christian spoke to the BBC about his part in the original Star Wars as well as making a very pertinent comment about the new lightsaber design in The Force Awakens.

The maker of the original lightsaber has taken a keen interest in the latest version, seen briefly in the newly released teaser.
Christian said: "Looking at the lightsaber in the trailer it has to be a found, older one as the blade is rougher, it's flame-like, so not as smooth as the newer blades.
"The snowy environment would hint that someone has found an ancient saber so I surmised this is an older laser sword.
"For sure there is a lot of debate going to be blogged now about the little blade protection side flames. They look cool, but aren't practical, and that was the original Star Wars mantra, everything had to look used and real. George wanted it that nothing ever stood out as designed, just a used universe that was real.
"So there has to be a reason coming for this laser sword. J J Abrams would have considered every visual in this first teaser.".


Source: BBC

 

When I first saw the leaked pic of it, I thought it was a dumb design. However - after viewing the teaser and considering it as a relic from bygone days, I find that it's a really, really cool concept. A clumsy, vicious, jagged, barely-contained lightsaber that looks like it could explode at any moment. It's not meant to be a streamlined, practical, elegant tool of defense like the 'modern' saber.

 

Stephen Colbert's Defense Of The New Lightsaber

 

I like this idea....

 

Stephen Colbert must be scrolling through these forums. Thanks for the credit...

 

I love this solution. As much as I wish JJ could see this, I doubt he'll do anything about it at this point. Regardless, I'm already warming up to the crossguard design...because, as one video I watched has said, some protection for hands is batter than no protection. If the stubby parts get cut off by the opponent, then the wielder's hands get sliced all the same...but at least there's less chance of that happening if you can maneuver the weapon a particular way.

 

That is a better version I how did they miss that.

 

eh, I don't like it. Might be more practical, but it looks way more awkward. I like the simplicity of the trailer version.

 

I like the lightsaber a lot. As for a practical purpose, it's probably just to kick ass.

 

Colbert's explanation makes perfect sense to me. That's how I'll view the saber from here on out until proven wrong or right by the film.

 

Clearly a lot of you didn't take lightsaber design and physics in school.

Casuals, get out.

 

Fun fact: those little cross-guards are also known as "quillons" in sword parlance.

While the light emitters stick out a bit before the laser quillions begin on each side, the emitters would not necessarily be severed by an opponent’s lightsaber sliding down the blade. We don't really know whether or not lightsabers actually function that way in-universe.

Based on what we’ve seen in any of the films or animated series episodes, depending on the vector of contact, lightsabers do one of three things when they contact each other: bounce off each other, clash against each other, or lock.

We've never actually seen a lightsaber slide down the blade of another, so to say that the quillions are impractical for this reason is pure speculation.

 

So say Colbert is right about the inner workings of the new lightsaber.

What happens when an opponent cuts at the cross-guard casings?

Could they be cut away completely while still allowing the blades to hold their shape? Would a new blade burst out of each fissure?


Also, if they removed the top half of the casings:





... it might satisfy a lot of confused fans.