Outside the EU, we never see anyone so much as detonate a grenade, let alone saturate a battlefield with them. So it’s a bit presumptuous to state that they have no canonical defense against a grenade launcher, when we never see a canonical example of a grenade launcher being employed against them.
That said, we do see them use both precognitive abilities and telekinesis in battle. It’s not much of a stretch to assume that they can use these abilities in tandem to protect themselves to deflect or redirect a solid projectile.
Conventional warfare in Star Wars has been largely unchanged for over a thousand generations - kind of surprising that it took that long for them to get wiped out, if they’re utterly defenseless against late 20th century technology.
What’s the speed of sound got to do with anything? Jedi are explicitly trained to ignore their physical senses in combat, and rely instead on their force-based precognition. Remember “Your eyes (and, presumably, ears) can deceive you. Don’t trust them.”? A Jedi wouldn’t need to hear the incoming grenades: he’d know when they were going to hit, and where they were coming from, before the grenadier started firing. And if he knows that, he only needs to TK one of them: the first one, just before it leaves the barrel of the grenade launcher.
“Ancient” doesn’t mean “rare,” let alone “extinct.” It just means really, really old. The Jedi Order as presented in the prequels is also ancient, despite being a large and politically powerful organization. Hell, the Jedi Order as presented in the Knights of the Old Republic games is also ancient, and those games take place 10,000 years before Star Wars.
The “thermal detonator” that Leia the bounty hunter threatens Jaba with could be a production model grenade, and not an improvised device.
But I have no evidence either way.
In this trailer for the Star Wars MMO, we see grenades used against a Sith, but it doesn’t seem to have a lot of effect on either the Sith, nor the trooper deploying it.
True, if you go by the strict, dictionary definition of the word. My point is that Han’s line implies that lightsabers are somehow outdated or antiquated, when they were, in fact, widely used (and quite effectively) within Han’s own lifetime. This isn’t even mentioning the fact that blasters are even more ancient technology. According to Wookieepedia, there’s substantial evidence that blaster technology was in use as far back as the Infinite Empire, which dissolved about 25,000 years before the original trilogy and about 10,000 years before the first (highly impractical) lightsabers.
Long story short, as much as I love Han’s original line, the expanded universe and prequels have rendered it kind of silly in context.
Either way, it’s a bit of a hijack so I’ll take my blue lightsaber and shut up.
I chose green because it’s the different one. We saw blue first, so it was the standard. Supposedly we only got green because it had better contrast with the blue sky above the Sarlacc pit.
If I could have anything cool as a Jedi, I would keep my lightsaber on a leather forearm strap, so as to use the force to have it fly into my hand, like a force version of one of those snap out guns from Taxi Driver.
We are in a universe with sub-light speed laser bolts, FTL travel over vast distances in short amounts of time with no relativity and The Force. I think we can safely assume that the normal laws of physics don’t apply here anyway.
IIRC, doesn’t one of 'em parry a shot or two from Jango Fett, which doesn’t suffice, since Jango simply keeps shooting until a blast connects and the Jedi goes down?
Don’t handwavium at me. Lobohan introduced the subject of grenades. And the grenade is such a simple, basic weapon I’d reckon it, or it’s high-tech equivalent, would be a staple part of an infantryman’s kit.
Occam’s Razor would imply simple, time-tested weapons would be near universal for non-Jedi/non-Force-using mundanes, even if we don’t see them.
I don’t buy that. And the OP expresssly forbade the EU. In Universe, it’s implied that the Jedi and Sith had a royal smackdown some time in the past, and the Sith were thought to be wiped out, or nearly so. Since the Jedi are kinda neat good guys, the [del]two[/del] three main reasons they haven’t been wiped out is because:
there aren’t enough Sith around, and haven’t been for some time, to take out all the Jedi,
the public in general, and the politicians/rulers they elect to lead them, find the Jedi useful and helpful dealing with mundane criminals and such.
They don’t try their Jedi stuff on a modern battlefield.
Oops! :eek: They did try to Jedi ass-kick on a modern battlefield, in AotC on Geonosis. And what happened?
They wound up surrounded, outnumbered, and nearly defeated by Battle Droids mounting fully-automatic blaster weaponry. It was only because Dooku took a moment to twirl his villainous mustache that allowed Yoda time to arrive with his newly-acquired Clone Army that saved one metric assload of Jedi.
Again, the implementation of Order 66 blows that line of bullshit right out of the water. Yoda is the only one we see display the kind of ability you described. And the dumb-ass Clone Troopers made it easy for him by walking right up on him to execute Order 66. With ranged weapons. :smack:
Other Jedi Masters from the Jedi Council are gunned down with little or no trouble.
So if a Mk. 19 existed in the Star Wars Universe and if it was employed on a battlefield, and if a Mk. 19 gunner took a Jedi under fire (they are a bit easy to spot with their giant, meter long, brightly illuminated chemlights), I would expect said Jedi to be blown to pieces.
What we can assume is that science and technology has advanced enough to bypass or overcome mundane laws of physics, the same way technology allowed man to fly, broke the sound barrier, and sent us to the moon and back.
All these were, at one time, deemed physically impossible. As in, the universal laws of physics would not permit such a thing to ever happen.
I didn’t say grenades didn’t exist, I said we never see grenades used in the movies. You can’t assert that Jedi have no defense against a grenade if we never see anyone try to use a grenade against a Jedi.
Saying it was “unchanged” was over-reaching, but it’s canon from the first movie that the Galactic Republic has been a space-faring civilization for at least a thousand generations. That’s how long Obi Wan says the Jedi were it’s guardians, at least. I’m guessing that they had grenade technology before they had FTL travel. And the Jedi were guarding the Republic from someone, so presumably, they’ve fought in wars before. The fact that there are any Jedi around at all hints pretty strongly that grenades are not the ultimate Jedi killer you suggest.
That assumes that the Sith are the only possible threat the Republic could have faced, or that the Jedi (in over a thousand generations of guarding the Republic) would ever have fought. I don’t think that’s a reasonable assumption.
Right - although for some reason, the Battle Droids weren’t firing grenades at the Jedi. Possibly because it’s common knowledge in the SW universe that firing grenades at Jedi is a bad idea?
Note, however, that the Jedi weren’t wiped out there. That was the beginning of a war that lasted - what, five years? A war that the Jedi led from the front lines, no less. And yet, there were still sufficient enough Jedi left by the end of the last movie for Order 66 to be necessary.
What are you talking about? Every Jedi displays that ability. It’s their signature move. If they can move fast enough to block a laser with a sword, they can move fast enough to teke a launched grenade before it clears the barrel. And they don’t need to see or hear the launcher to do that. It’s explicitly stated that their physical senses impede their ability to anticipate attacks: Luke can’t block the shots from the training droid until he puts on the helmet with the blast shield.
That’s not a sound assumption. Jedi are never seen to deflect supersonic projectiles. And as I mentioned earlier, they don’t appear to sense things that aren’t going to hurt them directly, Annie and Obi didn’t know the shape changer would be hit by a subsonic dart. This at least suggests that they might not sense the grenade going off until it is about to detonate.
Note also, that most use of TK involves a gesture and is fairly slow. It isn’t a given that TK use is as fast as the Jedi reflexes that allow them to pull a blade into the way of an attack.
Now I will admit that is an oversight, and makes no sense. But that’s because Lucas is an idiot and didn’t bother to spend a moment to think about the details. It is suggested from the original films that Jedi should wear armor. Common soldiers wear armor, why wouldn’t exceptional soldiers? Vader, a Jedi, wears an armored suit. But Lucas, in his vapidity, decided that Obi Wan’s desert robes were standard Jedi costume. That’s asinine. Specifically since it suggests that Old Ben in the desert is wearing his uniform while laying low. It literally is like having Hitler’s secret son in hiding and wearing your old Allied bomber jacket and flight cap when you go into town. He walked into Mos Eisley wearing a Jedi Uniform!!111Aaarrgh!!!
I find your lack of faith disturbing. The ability to lob a few granades is insignificant next to the power of the Force. Vader deflected Han’s blaster bolts from dining room table length away with a freakin Heisman hand. He Force tossed crates and giant industrial parts and Luke as if they were nothing. You don’t think he can just Force toss a few dozen 40mm rounds back at you as if he brushing away flys?
The deflection isn’t the same thing as TK. Think about every time Vader lifted the crates, they slowly lifted. Hitting a 1" target moving faster than the speed of sound might be harder.
Actually, we do. Sort of. The heavier blaster bolts (crew-served and vehicle mounted) produce secondary explosive effects when they strike matter (trees, rocks, metal, etc.) And people shoot lots of blaster bolts, big and small, directly at Jedi. Some miss entirely. Some are deflected. Some are deflected and redirected back at the shooter. And some hit. See the Arena Battle on Geonosis, or the execution of Order 66.
I would say it suggests the neither Lucas or his creative staff have any kind of realization of how incredibly lethal even relatively primitive weapons are. And grendes, as a concept and a battlefield weapon, predates firearms.
That, and they’re telling fairly tales. With ray guns and spaceships. They are not telling even a Mohs-level 3 science fiction story. Level 2, at best, and that’s being generous.
[quote=“Miller, post:52, topic:618478”]
That assumes that the Sith are the only possible threat the Republic could have faced, or that the Jedi (in over a thousand generations of guarding the Republic) would ever have fought. I don’t think that’s a reasonable assumption.
[quote]
No it doesn’t. It relies upon the Sith, and their possible re-emergence, being the only on-screen, in-Universe strategic threat that make the Jedi collectively crap their pants.
See above. Jedi are taken down by firepower. The delivery mechanism is less important than the technique, and indirect attacks like area-effect grenades (we’re not shooting at the Jedi, we’re shooting all around the Jedi with explosives), while not immune to interception, are less likely due to scatter and sheer numbers. Remember, “Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and thermonuclear weaponry,” and we are talking about grenades, being fired out of a fully-automatic grenade launcher with a cyclic rate of fire (max rate of fire) of 325-375 grenades a minute.
Get the image out of your mind from old war movies of John Wayne over-arm lobbing a single hand-grenade 25-30 feet.
There were enough Jedi left after so many years because Palpatine wasn’t ready to kill them off. He needed the war to continue in order to get the Republic Senate to keep voting him more-and-more executive powers.
When he had what he wanted, he told Anakin about his Dark Side connection, knowing Anakin would run back to the Jedi Council and tattle on him, and bring on the final showdown.
Yes. They can block a laser. A laser. They can even block multiple lasers. For a while. But a sustained barrage? Firepower defeats twirly lightsaber acrobatics. Grenades, artillery, rockets (which we do see on-screen, but not aimed at infantry so much as at vehicles and fortifications), again the specific mechnism is relatively unimportant.
If their TK combat is so effective, why don’t they TK the guns out of the hands of the battle droids on Geonosis, or out of the hands of the Clone Troopers during Order 66? Why don’t they TK away all the Clone Troopers shooting at them?
I was taking it as a given that the real world explanation is that the people making the films had no interest in portraying realistic battlefield tactics. I’m more interested in in-universe explanations. And I think it’s notable that, in-universe, nobody ever tries to kill a Jedi with a grenade, despite the fact that two of the six films take place during a war where the Jedi are a significant faction. Speaking strictly in-universe, there are four possible reasons for that:
No one in this universe ever invented a grenade. We both agree that this is absurd.
Every one fighting a Jedi is an idiot, and never thought to try this fairly obvious tactic. Still absurd, but given how poorly written the villains are in the prequels, not entirely out of the question.
Tons and tons of Jedi get killed by grenades, it just all happens off screen, and is never mentioned or addressed by any of the surviving Jedi.
Trying to kill a Jedi with a grenade is so clearly suicidal that everyone fighting them knows not to do it.
My money’s on number four, with number two close behind.
Eh. We only ever see the Jedi deal with one threat in the films. That threat happens to be the Sith, but there’s absolutely no reason to assume that the Sith are the only threat that can ever get (and has ever gotten) the Jedi off their asses. Seems unlikely that they’d still be viewed as an important part of the Republic if the only thing they ever helped out with was killing Sith, particularly given that everyone thought the Sith were extinct for centuries in Phantom.
Actually, the delivery is very important. Blaster bolts explode, but they’re also energy projectiles, and therefore, probably not subject to telekinesis. A grenade is a physical object. If a Jedi can grab one with telekinesis, then it doesn’t matter how many it can fire in a minute: he can stop the first one while it’s still in the tube and kill the gunner. He can’t do that with a blaster bolt, and so has to fall back on deflecting them with his lightsaber.
Palpatine didn’t have that much direct control over the course of the war. He didn’t control the Trade Federation, he simply manipulated them into fighting the Republic. The Trade Federation was fighting the Jedi as hard as they could.
Well, we do know that they can TK guns out of people’s hands: we see Vader do it to Han in Empire. And we know they can use telekinesis to knock over opponents, although the only time they do it on Geonosis is when one of the Jedi use it to immobilize C-3PO. (I’m pretty sure we see Obi Wan and Qui Gonn knock over a couple squads of droids with Force pushes in Phantom Menace, but I may be misremembering.)
As to why they didn’t do that to the troopers when they carried out Order 66, I can’t really defend that scene. I mean, entirely apart from the whole grenades things we’re arguing about, the entire sequence revolves around Jedi suddenly loosing their two most commonly shown abilities: reading people’s minds, and blocking blasters with their lightsabers. The whole thing is completely incompatible with everything we’ve seen Jedi do in the previous five movies.
Actually, that’s not how that scene went down. Check it out here. The telekinesis starts around 3:15. Most of what Vader is throwing at Luke vibrates for a split second, then takes off like a shot. The stuff that takes longer for him to throw is the stuff that’s bolted to the walls. Also note that he does appear to be able to manipulate multiple objects at the same time - towards the end, he gestures downward with his lightsaber, and a thingie next to him starts to vibrate. It cuts to Luke, getting clobbered with two other objects, then back to Vader, where the thing finally rips out of the wall and hits Luke. Clearly, while he was tearing that first object free, he was simultaneously manipulating the other two objects with which he was beating Luke.
I think the slight delay before the stuff moves is meant to indicate that those are particularly heavy objects. There are plenty of places in the prequel trilogies where we see Jedi casually whisking their lightsabers to hand, and a grenade would not be significantly more massive than a lightsaber. And even with the delay, the object is still clearly moving, even before it takes off across the room. That wobble, on a grenade, would probably be enough to trigger the impact fuse.
IIRC, the handwave on the “reading people’s minds” bit is that “I sense a clone trooper dutifully following orders without malice” ain’t much of a warning if you’ve been working alongside 'em for years, routinely picking up “I sense a clone trooper dutifully following orders without malice” thoughts while your comrades-in-arms loyally help you out.
And like I said upthread, the previous film already had Jango Fett drop a lightsaber-wielding Jedi with ordinary blaster-pistol marksmanship: not with the first shot or the second, which got parried just like the third – but the fourth blast apparently just got past the guy’s guard for the win. It happens, y’know?
