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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.
Honestly, that's why I think the original fight of Obi-Wan vs Vader was so good. They kind of fought like that.
The audience also cared for the characters and their motives. That's what made it good.
Yeah, it was a lot more probing at long distance. They basically established a style, but it wasn't flashy enough, so with each new movie it becomes even more bullshit.
So in defense of all this. I think the in-universe lore is that only Jedi and Sith can use lightsabers in this fashion, because the force prevents them from self injuring with a lightsaber.
So they end up with access to a more dangerous move set offensively than someone with a standard sword in our reality. Which also lends itself to different defensive capabilities and thus you get all this saber-fu shit.
Hell maybe there is an “aura” like component of the force and Jedi vs Sith battles have another layer of complextion. Basically these otherwise useless poses actually have an effect via the force itself.
Enabling the use of double light saber bullshit, and etc
I’m not saying it’s any less bullshit.
That's fine, but they keep putting themselves in the range of their opponents' light sabers. If they'd made the lore that a Jedi / Sith can exude a force field that allows them to take a hit with a light saber and that only a certain, powerful type of hit can do damage, then maybe they can be justified in getting within the other's striking range. But, really it's just that they want these extended slash and parry sequences with these light-up devices so they end up with these silly, unrealistic fights that are badly filmed to show the action and instead just show twirling glowy things.
Both Sith and Jedi do use the force to sense their opponents moves so they kinda got to get close to slow down reaction time.
If they didn't get close they would just have to stand 6 feet apart and talk about their issues instead
I'd watch that. Sounds like Andor.
They have precognition.
So I know what you are saying and you have a point.
But I find it funny as the modern olympic fencing boils down to "I stabbed you a split second before you stabbed me! I win!"
Depends on the particular fencing style. Sabre and Foil have right-of-way and Epee does not. So in Epee, it's whoever strikes first. In the others, the person who initiates the attack gets the point if they both touch during the attack regardless of who touched first.
It sounds silly, but part of the idea with foil and sabre is that they were initially training for actual self-defense, where it didn't matter if you stabbed your attacker if you got killed in the process. So the rule was you had to first keep yourself from getting touched before you could try and score a point of your own.
That doesn't sound like it leads logically to "you get the point if you were the aggressor, even if you also get touched" but sports rules are often many layers of arcane nonsense with too much deference given to the past. (I'd treat it more like a serve fault in tennis. Reckless attack is a do-over, twice in a row is a point for the other person.)
It's about a fundamental difference between offense and defense.
When you go on the offense, defeating the opponent is the primary goal.
If you're defending yourself, survival is the primary goal.
Right. Didn't realize (or forgot) only epee is like this. I don't really follow olympic fencing closely.
OP might even not meant olympic fencing originally, that's just where my mind went and I've found it funny.
Yeah, good point. People make essentially suicidal attacks in modern sport fencing because as long as they touch their opponent first the fact they were run through a tenth of a second later doesn't matter. But, a lot of fencing is staying at least one blade's length away from the opponent and probing and poking, so up until that final suicidal attack they're giving the opponent's weapon plenty of respect.
Yep. Also, ignoring sports, the more this ws the case the more the weapons developed to be lighter with point of ballance closer to the hilt.
If lightsabre blade doesn't weigh anything, it's the ultimate weapon for this sort of style of fencing (bonus points for any contact with the blade being harmful).
Your thinking made perfect sense, it's just my mind immediately went to the suicidal attacks in sport fencing and I've found it funny.
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.
Yeah force users all got like low grade Spidey Sense.
Force users have precognition with it roughly scaling with power and experience which tends to prolong fights on the more powerful end of things since they are basically fucking with each other to try to squeeze out an advantage. Given that the movies generally follow people towards the top of the skill and power spectrum we tend to only see those high end fights in action, on the lower ends or when power imbalance comes into play it basically devolves into what you described, but that mostly only appears in comics and books.
Also there are materials that can resist, block, or even disable lightsabers which I'll list in no particular order with their affects.
Songsteel: Lightsaber resistant.
Cortosis: As an allow it's resistant, in a pure form it shorts out lightsabers but is brittle.
Phrik: Lightsaber resistant.
Plasteel: Resistant to short glancing blows or in sufficient thickness.
Mandalorian Iron/Beskar: Highly resistant to lightsabers.
Certain Force abilities: There is a force ability called energy absobtion that can be used to just grab a lightsaber and drain it. Vader used a lesser form of it on cloud city to block Hans blaster bolts. Presumably there are other abilities that can do similar.
Fun fact the Jedi and Sith both once used armor that was lightsaber resistant and some lightsaber fighting styles formed specifically to deal with that. Also Anakin wore armor that was lightsaber resistant, I presume he stole it from somewhere.
Yeah, but:
steven segal motions
The Force.
Haha, I made a huge comment to say basically this and then that made me laugh so hard reading this.
You guys didn't even mention the midichlorians!
Ah, I see you too have been sucked into the hema YouTube rabbit hole. I would take self-described medieval martial arts experts opining on science fantasy with a grain of salt.
Like your reasoning is fine and the fights probably should be more fencing-like, but we also have to consider that Jedi are not normal beings. There's a lot going on invisibly in those fights, like how they're channeling the force into all their actions as well as experiencing a kind of prescience. So it begs the question, what does a fight look like with that kind of meta?
this is one of the funnier interactions I've seen on lemmy. 'you can't see it, but there's a whole bloop blorp whiz patang freeowww goin on that justifies the goofy interaction of plasma beams that should just pass right through each other'
I grew up reading xwing books other fantasy, and sw as fantasy works better. No disrespect, just found the distinctions hilarious.
Just sayin. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
why can't we get a jedi academy series, where it explains blue green purple sabers, or jedi battle meditation, or all the other cool shit, no we have to 'somehow palpatine came back and there's another planet kablooie lazar!' bah. feh I say. FEH!.
Fun fact: the OG Darth Vader vs Kenobi duel is legit. You can even name certain fencing moves. They engage, flip, flip, poke, and disengage before some lines of dialogue. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
They're actually dance fighting.
But it isn't even good, stylish dance fighting because Hollywood is so bad at filming action scenes.
Let's get some ~~gun~~ blaster katas up in here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4weEXyoXZKs&t=1m2s
I would have expected some kenjutsu/kendo type attacks over purely thrusting though.
The light saber has the ability to be as good or better of a "slashing" weapon as a thrusting, despite the lack of curvature. It's closer to a long sword than a saber in the way it would be used in the absence of sci-fi handwaving, but with the whole vibe of the Jedi being monkish, that Lucas pretty much ignored eastern blade fighting entirely, and samurai shit in particular is kinda weird. Like, Chinese jian styles are closer to what would work with a blade of the same size and general shape, and is just as cinematic as what got used in the prequels.
But kenjutsu and iaido could make for seriously dramatic force mojo duels rather than expecting us to watch Yoda and Palpatine do acrobatics in complete opposition to their very centered and cerebral behavior in all other aspects.
It isn't even about realism to me, because it's just wizards with swords fantasy set in space, not hard sci-fi. But I really would have expected more control, more precision, more internal mastery of their weapons.
Sure, but that's unnecessary. To be able to cut / slash you have to get closer than you need to get to just poke, and why risk it? Really, just tape one to the end of a long pole and you have a spear that you can use at even longer range with even less risk to yourself.
Two factors, ignoring the sci-fi part of things.
First, depending on armor levels, a slashing/chopping/cutting attack can be directed at places other than center of mass and be very effective. This gives you reach that you just can't achieve while expecting to end a fight via thrusting. As a general thing, it's referred to as defanging the serpent. You attack the parts that either hold your opponent's weapon, or otherwise allow them to attack.
This means in practice that someone doing standard thrust attacks can be at a major disadvantage unless they are significantly faster than their enemy.
Second, even if you don't defang the serpent, you can still attack the wrists, ankles, or arms from a better distance. You bleed the fucker out. This favors the kind of mobile, angular footwork you'll see in some forms of sword fighting. Lunges are necessary to close distance inside of reach. At some point, you limit yourself to a single angle of attack. Depending on your training and physical capabilities, a straight lunge is one of the easiest attacks to avoid and counter.
When it's done with something that can also slash, it decreases your exposure and allows for some really nasty feints for sure, but you've still largely committed to a movement. Committing like that can be good or bad, but if you're against someone that's countering you from angles you can't quickly pivot to, you end up in trouble.
Now, the argument for spears against swords is absolutely a good one. Reach is king in most fights, no matter the weapon or lack thereof. Mass is often queen, though I really dislike gendering ideas like this. It's just the frame of reference I was given back in the day, so it sticks in my head better.
But, spears are not the best 1 on 1 weapon, at least not the usual spear with a long shaft. The shorter spears like assegi are fucking beast mode, though generally are used with a shield, and thus hard to properly assess for a thrust vs slash kind of comparison. Plus, while I have fucked with spears, including short spears, I don't have anywhere near the actual sparring time in.
Anyway, point is that the point is at the end of a long stick. That length is a lever. When that spear is side by side with other spears and a shield wall, you're an idiot to run in with a sword.
But when that spear is alone? It's trivial to deflect and avoid. And I say trivial with the full meaning. It's absurdly easy. You run into some guys that train with kingfu type spears that can make it way less easy, but then again, that's not really the same weapon as you'd have if you taped a light saber to a big stick. They function in a different way than more rigid spears.
Now, let it be known that, despite the user name, I have nowhere near as much time in with swords. I did okay, I've trained and sparred, but I was always more of a knife guy. A lot of the same principles apply, but stabby stabby only in knife use is vastly inferior to using the entire weapon as needed. Trying to use something like a Fairbairn Sykes dagger against a bowie is not going to end well unless you're significantly better than the bowie guy. Different tools for different jobs, you dig?
Now, I agree that the on screen jedi moves are absurdly inefficient. There's people that have learned the stuff that was designed for the movies, and they get their asses handed to them if they try it sparring. Too many openings, too much wasted energy. None of it works unless you're using the kind of extra light performance sabers that are built for it. The balance of the weapons aren't right otherwise. Well, mostly. There's footage of some of those folks using aggression and mobility to do quite well, but it's still with unrealistic practice weapons.
But if you had an actual light saber, you'd stay tight, keep things close and do controlled slashes, more akin to what you see in kenjutsu. Mind you, most kenjutsu is two handed, not single, so there's only limited on screen stuff that makes for 1:1 comparison.
Honestly, Dooku is the most realistic swordsman in the prequels.
This is an insightful comment, but I don't think you can just ignore the sci-fi part of things when talking about the realism of fighting with "light" blades.
Like, when you talk about ending a fight via thrusting. With a thrusting-only sword, or even a sword with a point and an edge, the amount of damage you can do with a thrust is pretty limited. You can poke a hole in someone, or open a cut, but you can't easily remove a limb. But, with a light saber it's different. If the tip wiggles around a bit as part of the thrust, it could easily take off a limb because every surface of the "blade" is a cutting surface.
With a real sword, your slash needs to be aligned with the cutting edge of the blade, and needs to have a bit of force behind it. What they've shown us with light sabers is that the merest touch will cut almost anything in half. If it's something super solid like a massive steel wall / bulkhead, it can require a little bit of pressure.
To me, that says that in a battle against a light saber, if any part of the blade touches any part of your body, you're probably dead. IMO that massively changes how these weapons would be used.
As for a light-spear, even if a spear isn't the best one-on-one weapon in the real world, if the point of the spear is this thing that cuts through anything it touches without resistance that might be different, especially if the spear tip is the length of a sword. I've never done any spear training, but I did some work with a staff a long while ago. There are a lot of slashing type attacks with a staff, but there are also a lot of poking type attacks. Those don't leave you very open, and they let you probe at someone while staying well outside their range (unless they're doing the same thing). With a staff they don't do much damage, but if the last meter of the staff were this magical cutting surface, that would be different.
I don't know what exactly a fight would look like with a real light saber, but I strongly suspect that the fighters would spend as little time as possible with any part of their body within the range of the other person's blade. I also suspect that dramatic big movements would be suicidal. Any second you spend without your sword pointing directly at the other person and keeping them from closing the distance allows them to close in and lop off your arm with the slightest flick of a wrist.
The problem is they called them light sabres, so, naturally, they must be wielded maniacally.
Grievous puts two of his arms back whenever he uses the other two to block.
The whole thing is just idiotic nonsense that looks flashy and has no substance.
But Disney is the epitomy of soulless evil and George Lucas could do no wrong according to the fandom.
Word of advice, just dont bother.
It's kind of like how knife fights are portrayed as some intense dance where two fighters circle each other swiping and parrying, dancing around and scoring pretty slashes on arms and shoulders.
In reality it's usually just one guy gets inside the others striking radius and stabs the other guy in the gut/throat until he is too weak to fight back.
Doesn't make for good theater. West Side Story would have been, like, 20 minutes long if you got rid of the fight choreography and useless expository singing.
What a misleading documentary.
I like how you call out West Side Story where it is one of the rare pieces of media that highlights how dangerous a knife is. The whole lead up to the gang fight they're saying no weapons as knives are a big deal. In the fight, I think only one or two people pull out a knife. And from recollection, once a knife comes out, it moves pretty quickly to someone getting stabbed once/dies/gang fight disperses cause "wholly shit someone's got a knife and killed someone".
Like I understand that yeah there is a lot of dancing in the movie, but once the knife comes out things turn pretty serious. Unlike something like Crocodile Dundee where they're comparing knife sizes.
The difference is that I don't think anybody is supposed to believe that the knife fights in West Side Story are anything other than dance.
Also, I'd bet that the reality for knife fights isn't that one guy gets inside the other's radius and wins, it's probably that both take extremely serious knife wounds but one guy is fully dead and the other is just bleeding out.
Typically, the loser of the knife fight dies in the gutter, while the winner dies in the ambulance.
Ayo fuck West side. East side is the best
Akshually, there is armor in the lore.
(Probably) Bolted on after the fact but there is.