# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/41 "2009-03-16T04:21:50Z")
Lightsabers can [be quite dangerous in unskilled hands…](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uyz5nv0sBA&feature=related) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/42 "2009-03-16T04:57:33Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > While I’ve got you all here, what’s a Grand Moff? A Moff whose Moffs have had Moffs of their own. ---
**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, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/43 "2009-03-16T12:55:16Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > A Moff whose Moffs have had Moffs of their own. Ah. Of course. Thanks! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Offkenter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f08c70/32.png) [@Offkenter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Offkenter)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/44 "2009-03-16T18:01:40Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Watch ROTS again-especially the epic duel. Obi-Wan does indeed pick up Anakin’s lightsaber. > > (Or wait-haven’t you seen _Revenge of the Sith_? Because it’s the BEST of the prequels-and that IS saying a lot. Especially the fight scene.) This is true, but anyone watching _Revenge of the Sith_ should eject the disk at the end of the lightsaber battle. Everything after is so badly shoehorned in that it makes Jarjar look like a compelling character. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/45 "2009-03-16T19:03:25Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Okay, if you don’t mind being spoiled, [HERE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKX5EwCgm8M) is the duel on YouTube. If you skip to around 7:17 or so, you can see Obi-Wan pick up Anakin’s lightsaber. > > (But I’d watch the whole thing-it ROCKS. It’s probably THE best fight in SW history) Except for the ending. Higher ground my ass. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/46 "2009-03-16T19:26:46Z")
> [@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. If you go by the Expanded Universe, Vader was still a formidible badass, but Sith Lightning was beyond his reach because he didn’t have actually arms to channel it. Thus his preferred method of choking people. Furthermore, in one of the newest EU books/video games, The Force Unleashed, Vader moved like an old man against Obi Wan in their duel in Star Wars because he was almost killed by his apprentice (who he was using to rout out the rebellion and as a surrogate son). ---
**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, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/47 "2009-03-16T20:01:32Z")
Grand Moff Tarkin is possibly the greatest villain in sci-fi/fantasy whose name can be sung to the tune of _Old Man River_. There was a series in the old (late '70s) STAR WARS comic strip in which GMT’s widow was a main character. I don’t remember the details, but Leia somehow wound up as a servant in her house while in hiding from the Empire, and Vader came to one of her galas. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/48 "2009-03-16T21:24:10Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > No, lightsabers have never been commonly sold. You need to be able to use the Force in order to wield one without killing yourself. After Han Solo used one that really isn’t true. What I have always thought the deal is, that unless you are a Jedi, it is an assinine weapon to have. The benefit of the LS is that it is excellent defensively, _If_ you have precognition. Otherwise you are just taking a really fricken expensive knife to a gun fight. It’s better to have the range of the blaster, as pointed out by Solo, since you can’t block laser shots anyway. I suppose some Ultra rich dudes who join the army might have a pocket Swiss Army LightSaber, just cause they can afford it, and it would be a sweet-ass utility knife, but in battle they are still gonna use the blaster. ---
**Author:** ![Airblairxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Airblairxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airblairxxx)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/49 "2009-03-16T21:55:12Z")
[QUOTE=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. [/QUOTE] > [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > Solution: Anakin did not feel that way at all, but Obi-Wan wanted Luke to think that he did. People do lie sometimes. “Darth Vader betrayed and murdered your father.” Yeah, I’d say that Obi Wan might be guilty of a little selective memory at times. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/50 "2009-03-16T21:55:14Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > Except for the ending. Higher ground my ass. I thought I was the only one who thought that. After hurtling objects with your minds and leaping around giant scaffolding that’s floating on a river of lava, does it really matter if one of you is slightly uphill from the other? ---
**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, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/51 "2009-03-16T21:56:35Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > After Han Solo used one that really isn’t true. What I have always thought the deal is, that unless you are a Jedi, it is an assinine weapon to have. The benefit of the LS is that it is excellent defensively, _If_ you have precognition. That’s the point. Han used it to slice open a dead animal carcass. One swipe. Even I could do that. But unless you’re a Jedi, it’s not only an ineffective weapon/defense, but one wrong move and you no longer have an ear. At least with a regular metal blade the flat is relatively harmless. The precognition is pretty much mandatory for using it beyond mundane utility. I suspect non-Jedi wouldn’t even bother with the lightsaber for that much. Most used vibroblades which are less visible, easier to produce (the construction of a lightsaber apparently also requires Force sensitivity), and less dangerous to the user, with nearly as much cutting power. ---
**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, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/52 "2009-03-16T23:07:27Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > does it really matter if one of you is slightly uphill from the other? The original line was “Never fight a land war in Asia!”, but there were some legal problems some legal problems from Rob Reiner. ---
**Author:** ![Sweetums](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Sweetums](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweetums)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/53 "2009-03-16T23:54:29Z")
Regarding lightsaber combat. Fanwank alert! As far as I can tell using a lightsaber is not only the physical and mental aspects normally involved in using a sword, but how one channels the force as well. In other words, it may LOOK like two guys going at it with swords, but in actuality they are using the force to guide their actions. The swinging of the blades is only the physical manifestation of the greater internal struggle of their force abilities. This is why only jedi can use them. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/54 "2009-03-17T00:19:05Z")
On some documentary about STAR WARS it was mentioned that the light sabre operates on a form of star plasma that can cut slice through absolutely anything other than another light sabre’s plasma. Per same documentary (which I believe was on History Channel), presumably if one were dropped onto a floor and there’s not some sort of “automatic turn off” and the handle didn’t melt or get wedged then presumably it would keep going to the core of the planet and beyond until perhaps it got sucked into a star. No idea if the color of the light plasma makes any difference in effectiveness. Does anybody know if it was always Lucas’s intent (when he did A NEW HOPE but before he did TESB) to make Annakin Skywalker Luke’s father? I wasn’t sure how much was retconned to make fit. (As mentioned in other threads, few if any biographical things about Annakin pre Vader fit with what’s known or even with logic from the first trilogy.) ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/55 "2009-03-17T00:29:56Z")
The explanation I have always heard is that a lightsaber blade is a (very long and narrow) toroidal magnetic field holding a rotating plasma. (Apparently those blades are hollow if you look straight down the length of them.) The plasma is generated by a laser and the color of the laser determines the color of the blade. In turn, the color of the laser depends on the color of the crystal used to focus it. The reason that only Jedi can use lightsabers is that the rotating plasma creates a gyroscopic effect, causing the lightsaber to swing off in odd directions when swung. Only the Jedi with their precognitive abilities can predict how the blade will behave and so use one without slicing themselves in half. Lightsabers can block each other because their magnetic fields will repel each other. They can deflect blaster bolts for the same reason; blaster bolts are tiny magnetic “bubbles” holding a bit of plasma and so the magnetic blade of the saber can deflect them. I have no idea how “accurate” any of that is, but the explanation at least seems to have come from someone who spent way too much time thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/56 "2009-03-17T00:38:52Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > The original line was “Never fight a land war in Asia!” I heard it was “Go ahead, make my day.” ---
**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 17, 2009, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/57 "2009-03-17T01:28:23Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I heard it was “Go ahead, make my day.” George Lucas changed the lawsuit against him when he changed Hans shooting first. ---
**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 17, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/58 "2009-03-17T01:37:17Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > George Lucas changed the lawsuit against him when he changed Hans shooting first. Seriously, would you rather have Rob Reiner pissed at you, or Clint Eastwood? ---
**Author:** ![sco3tt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@sco3tt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sco3tt)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/59 "2009-03-17T03:30:18Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > There was a series in the old (late '70s) STAR WARS comic strip in which GMT’s widow was a main character. Grandma Tarkin? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480/60 "2009-03-17T04:09:43Z")
> [@sco3tt](#): > > Grandma Tarkin? Technically, though the kids just called her Gammy Mof. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-question-with-spoiler/489480.md?page=4)