# Star Wars question, with spoiler. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 15, 2009, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480 "2009-03-15T01:43:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/21 "2009-03-15T15:23:40Z")
I don’t recall any “mysticism” attached to lightsabers prior to the RPG coming out in '86 or '87; not that there was a lot of EU material available back then, compared to the glut of stuff that began flowing after the Thrawn Trilogy by T. Zahn which was introduced in '91. As someone with some very limited experience with swordplay, I can attest that a weightless blade like a lightsaber would take some getting used to, but would not be impossible for a non-Jedi to master. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/22 "2009-03-15T15:48:20Z")
I always thought that a better lightsaber would be similar to the bloodswords in the _Star of the Guardians_ series- if you didn’t have the micromachines already in your body, you could still wield a bloodsword, but only once, as you would begin to die as soon as the needles in the hilt went into your palm. ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/23 "2009-03-15T15:59:12Z")
Grievous in EpIII wielded lightsabers, and I don’t think he was a jedi. With enough training anyone could probably use it, but you probably wouldn’t be able to use it to deflect blaster shots or survive a duel with another jedi. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/24 "2009-03-15T18:59:37Z")
> [@Yumblie](#): > > Grievous in EpIII wielded lightsabers, and I don’t think he was a jedi. With enough training anyone could probably use it, but you probably wouldn’t be able to use it to deflect blaster shots or survive a duel with another jedi. I expect that Grievous had better than human reflexes though, what with being “more machine than man.” Besides that, his ‘technique’ was basically multiple windmills of death, rather than anything that could really be called swordplay. That said, I tend to agree with you. A lightsaber is simple and predictable, not like (say) a monofilament whip that could very easily recoil in an unpredictable way and slice its owner in half. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why a normal swordsman couldn’t use one skillfully. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/25 "2009-03-15T19:04:53Z")
in the scene in question, obi-wan shuts down his saber, puts it into the saber holster/hook/thingy; picks up anakin’s and walks away. it is a “you are no longer a jedi, no lightsaber for you” thing. anakin is no longer worthy of the saber, he has turned from the jedi ways. like a court marshal, you are stripped of rank, and your sword is broken. he then took it to tatooine with him, along with luke. i figure he thought he would use anakin’s saber while training luke. lars wisely kept them apart. the “your father would have wanted you to have this” thing would be true if anakin had died a jedi, he would have wanted it to go to his son. obi wan after years in the hot desert suns and sand storms seems to see anakin as one person, and darth vader a completely different person. a rather interesting defense mechanism. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/26 "2009-03-15T19:17:16Z")
> [@shy\_guy](#): > > This bugs me in regard to the prequels, but it doesn’t even really make sense in the context of the movie itself, since Vader clearly makes a habit out of _choking people to death with telekenesis_. What exactly do they think is going on? And like you say, the Jedi were a vastly important quasi-governmental, extremely active group _within the adult life_ of anyone old enough to be an officer on the Death Star. > > Thankfully they pretty much drop that after the first fifteen minutes of the first movie. Nobody in Jabba’s palace seems to have any trouble believing in Jedi. > > But yeah, one of my least favorite things about the prequels (and there are many) is that they take away the mystery of what the Old Republic was like. Obi-Wan’s brief, wistful statement at the beginning of Star Wars was a lot more effective than three crappy movies. But there’s only a few Jedi spread out over an entire galaxy. Sure, people have HEARD of Jedi, they’ve heard they have some powers and stuff, but they’ve never seen a Jedi in action. It’s like, you know there are Secret Service agents that protect the president, but you’ve probably never seen one, and even if you had you don’t know their techniques and procedures except in a general way. And any officers who worked closely with the Jedi twenty years ago were certainly all purged by the Emperor. The ones left are chosen not for their skills but for their political reliabilty, which is why they constantly make boneheaded military blunders and can’t hit the broad side of a barn. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/27 "2009-03-15T20:54:31Z")
> [@shy\_guy](#): > > This bugs me in regard to the prequels, but it doesn’t even really make sense in the context of the movie itself, since Vader clearly makes a habit out of _choking people to death with telekenesis_. What exactly do they think is going on? And like you say, the Jedi were a vastly important quasi-governmental, extremely active group _within the adult life_ of anyone old enough to be an officer on the Death Star. > > Thankfully they pretty much drop that after the first fifteen minutes of the first movie. Nobody in Jabba’s palace seems to have any trouble believing in Jedi. I just assume it was Tarkin spouting propaganda/the official government position, much like the Soviets claiming to have stamped out religion or President Amindjabwossname declaring there are no homosexuals in Iran. ---
**Author:** ![Bootis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e8c25b/32.png) [@Bootis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootis)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/28 "2009-03-15T21:07:25Z")
> [@magnusblitz](#): > > . Yeah, I know that its a galaxy of gazillions of people, but with so many Jedi running around in the prequels, being very forthcoming about their powers and generally seeming quite famous, it’s hard to imagine that they’d be utterly forgotten about and treated as myth in 20 years. People are pretty stupid though, You wouldn’t think thousands of people could think the Holocaust was a myth a few decades after the fact either. ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/29 "2009-03-15T21:20:36Z")
They don’t have you tube, libraries or access to old news reports in the empire? ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/30 "2009-03-15T21:36:44Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > I just assume it was Tarkin spouting propaganda/the official government position, much like the Soviets claiming to have stamped out religion or President Amindjabwossname declaring there are no homosexuals in Iran. I think you’re right; that’s definitely the best explanation for it. But it still bugs me, because Darth Vader is _right there_ using his Jedi powers to do stuff all the time. I could see if everyone was sort of pretending that there had been no Jedi (although again, we plainly see at the end of Episode 3 that at least one Star Destroyer is already staffed with people who were presumably part of the Old Republic, so it isn’t as if there was no continuity between the OR and the Empire), but it doesn’t really make any sense for an officer to be getting all up in Vader’s face about it. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/31 "2009-03-15T21:49:54Z")
Except that it would hardly be a new height of hypocrisy in the dictators’ tradition to use Vader while at the same time making it official propaganda that Jedi powers were exaggerated myth. And Tarkin is exactly the sort of person who would call Vader on that. Remember, Vader is an outside consultant brought in by the Emperor to “help” Tarkin. Tarkin knows that Vader is the Emperor’s right-hand man, but he’s still the one in command, not Vader. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/32 "2009-03-15T21:53:43Z")
In the original scenes, after the “disarming” Gollum floats by on his own lava flow and says “ooh, _another_ precious”, so Obi Wan takes the sword, whereupon Gollum thinks a moment, says “Trade ya!”, and then goes over the lava falls. Unfortunately there was a copyright infringement lawsuit so it was removed. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/33 "2009-03-16T01:13:49Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I wouldn’t agree with that. 🙂 > Thanks, all. Well, it is a damned good movie, is what I meant. (Although I do like the prequels, unlike most people.) > [@Lochdale](#): > > They don’t have you tube, libraries or access to old news reports in the empire? Yeah, but how heavily censored would they be in the Empire? It’s supposed to be like Nazi German, or the Soviet Union. Besides, it’s not like Tarkin didn’t believe in the Force so much, as that he just thought the Jedi were pretty much wiped out. Vader and the Emperor were the only ones left. He didn’t feel that the Force was stronger than technology. And a lot of Imperials probably hadn’t seen Vader first hand, and probably thought the rumors were phony, and that Vader hadn’t actually choked them telekinetically. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/34 "2009-03-16T01:25:43Z")
Sorry for the hijack…hey, I started the thread. While I’ve got you all here, what’s a Grand Moff? ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/35 "2009-03-16T01:48:48Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > I just assume it was Tarkin spouting propaganda/the official government position, much like the Soviets claiming to have stamped out religion or President Amindjabwossname declaring there are no homosexuals in Iran. But even Han had never heard of them, and he’d been around a bit. Oh, and he was the only non-Jedi/Sith character who was shown using a lightsabre. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/36 "2009-03-16T01:51:48Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Sorry for the hijack…hey, I started the thread. > While I’ve got you all here, what’s a Grand Moff? The books said that Moffs were sector governors. Grand Moffs were in charge of super-sector groups, typically “trouble spots.” ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/37 "2009-03-16T02:00:37Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Sorry for the hijack…hey, I started the thread. > While I’ve got you all here, what’s a Grand Moff? The next rank up from a common, everyday Moff, of course! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/38 "2009-03-16T02:16:55Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Sorry for the hijack…hey, I started the thread. > While I’ve got you all here, what’s a Grand Moff? [Grand Moffs](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Grand_Moff). Basically, people who were in charge of trouble spots, like **ExTank** said, and reported directly to the emperor. > [@johnspartan](#): > > Although even that part causes a problem. Because remember what Obi Wan sez when he gives the light saber to Luke… “This was your father’s light saber… _he wanted you to have it when you were old enough._”. > > Ummm okay A) Anakin didn’t even know he had a son, apparently. b) even if he HAD, there’s nothing we see in Anakin’s personality even BEFORE he falls that sounds like "Boy, if anything ever happens to me I want you to make sure my children get trained in the Force… and c) ultimately Anakin didn’t even want OBI-WAN to have it, much less hold onto it for some appointed task. I don’t recall who posted this, but : > [@](#): > > Ben: Your father wanted you to have this. > > Luke: Really? > > Ben: Actually, I assumed he would have wanted you to have it. > > Luke: Assumed? > > Ben: Well I didn’t really think it’d be a good idea to ask him at the time. He was sort of legless and on fire, but I’m pretty sure he would have wanted you to have it. > > Luke: _gasp_ > > Ben: Oh yeah and there was that whole ‘I hate you.’ and I did leave him to die a fiery and horrible death, but I’m sure he would have told me to give you his lightsaber had he not been screaming in pain and hellbent on killing me at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/39 "2009-03-16T03:53:38Z")
A bit off topic, but how much did Annakin’s maiming and burns and transformation into James Earl Jones affect his ability to use the Force? Was he unaltered, or “not what he was before but still more powerful than others”? And I wonder if Vader could use force lightning. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/40 "2009-03-16T04:08:40Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > A bit off topic, but how much did Annakin’s maiming and burns and transformation into James Earl Jones affect his ability to use the Force? Was he unaltered, or “not what he was before but still more powerful than others”? And I wonder if Vader could use force lightning. Well, _if_ you accept that the ability to tap the Force comes from microscopic creatures in your body, then there’s a theory that, by losing his limbs, Anakin actually lost a significant portion of his strength. As the only remaining Jedi (aside from Palpatine), he’s still pretty damn fearsome to mundane folk, but he could have been stupidly powerful had he gotten out of that situation intact. There’s a _further_ theory that Palpatine _wanted_ that to happen so that Vader couldn’t actually overthrow him, as Sith apprentices were meant to eventually do to their masters. By making sure his apprentice could never be strong enough, Palpatine’s power was completely cemented. But I think that assumes Palpatine isn’t merely a master schemer, but omniscient as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480.md?page=3)