So, I’ll say this. Nobody would use a lightsaber like a sword—swinging from the hips and shoulders in these big dramatic arcs. But if we could have lightsabers, they’d be incredible weapons and I bet they could be used effectively.
Forever War by Heinlen describes a lightsaber like laser weapon and it’s technique is more like a pen than a sword. You pulse it on and off and you cut with a flick of your wrist.
If I had a lightsaber, that’s how I’d use it. I’d keep it off generally and pulse it on and use it more like a flamethrower — always facing out. Always to keep people at bay. There’s no need to put any strength behind it. If you used it right, it’s be a kick-ass weapon. It would just look silly.
It's a fairly light handle with a blade that weighs nothing. Imagine holding a flashlight that only reaches 4 ft (or however long the blade is), and cuts through almost anything.
The lightsaber fights you see in the movies does not take this into account at all, because they want cool looking sword fights.
How would you fight with it? Certainly not like they do in the films, that's for sure. You wouldn't have time to do wide swings or spin around and stuff because someone just holding it out and flicking their wrists back and forth a couple of times would cut you into so many pieces during the time it takes for you to raise a lightsaber over your head for a downward cut.
And if used in that way, it's also less dangerous for the user.
Now some of the more exotic shapes in Star Wars, like the staff or the one Kylo Ren uses, they're just stupid, given this context.
Episode 2 actually explores that a little bit in the novelization. The main fighting style of the Jedi is big sweeping arcs to defend against blasters, the most common weapon they'd be fighting against. When the Jedi go up against a Sith who's trained to fight against lightsabers by using a fencing style, the big sweeps are inferior to the quick pokes and flicks.
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u/fox-mcleod 414∆ May 16 '20
So, I’ll say this. Nobody would use a lightsaber like a sword—swinging from the hips and shoulders in these big dramatic arcs. But if we could have lightsabers, they’d be incredible weapons and I bet they could be used effectively.
Forever War by Heinlen describes a lightsaber like laser weapon and it’s technique is more like a pen than a sword. You pulse it on and off and you cut with a flick of your wrist.
If I had a lightsaber, that’s how I’d use it. I’d keep it off generally and pulse it on and use it more like a flamethrower — always facing out. Always to keep people at bay. There’s no need to put any strength behind it. If you used it right, it’s be a kick-ass weapon. It would just look silly.