1 hour ago, BlodVargarna said:

The prequel duels were absurd. Flipping and leaping. You say you've had training, then you'd recognize the straight from the woodcut fechtbuch scene with Rey and Kylo struggling. It was fantastic.

The prequel duels were at least entertaining, and duel of fates is still one of my favorites, meanwhile Rey vs Kylo was trying for more realism, but failed anyway at it. I am not sure how it was fantastic.
Besides, you are rather unspecific which woodcut or even which fencing book you mean. ;-)

3 minutes ago, Toqtamish said:

Ahahhaha. wow. Rogue One was ******* awesome.

If you say so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_eYiw0Vxcw

2 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

If you say so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_eYiw0Vxcw

What is the significance of the audience excited at TPM opening? I can only relate my personal experience. I waited in line with my friends for hours, we got in, cheered like mad at the exact same moment. Then the sinking feeling set in within the first few minutes with the wooden dialog, cartoon like CGI, bad accents on aliens.

Then Jar Jar.

Then young Anakin.

Then gungans... Then etc etc etc.

The disappointment in the atmosphere while the theater emptied afterward was palpable. I distinctly remember an excited fan waiting to get into the next screening watching the downcast crowd file past wail "oh no it's going to suck."

Impressive, a lot of fans went out exited and got in line again even with TPM.
It took a while until it sunk in what a stinker TPM was.
It took a while until it sunk in what a stinker TFA was.
I guess it will take a while until it sunk in what a stinker RO is. ;-)

3 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

I don't know about that. Now TFA was indeed pretty bad, but I think Rogue one was even worse. The only redeeming feature was the space battle in rogue one, they both scrap at TPM levels, and imho from below, not above. Or they would if the TMP effects would not have aged so badly on top.

Rogue one was redeemed by the space battle and the Vader scene. the rest wasnt great but it held **** together until Admiral Radish delivered. thats all any of us really want, good space battles and jedi/sith dismembering eachother with maybe some blaster dudes blastering it up. decent world building is good too. Force awakens didnt really have enough of any of that to be good

Rogue one had a whole team of badass Han Solo types and just plain ol badasses all around. Casian: badass

K-2SO: badass

Saw: crazy badass

Baze: BADASS

blind guy that I can never get his name right: total badass

Jyn: street punk turned action girl badass.

Bhodi Rook: poor guy, went out like a punk, but he's an Imp Pilot so he's cool in my book.

Merrick 'Blue Leader': King Badass!

Adm. Raddus: Admiral Badass you mean. Totally stomped two ISDs and won the day. He will be remembered. And so will Hammerhead corvettes!

Back to JJ.

Surprisingly, he only has 13 directorial credits to his name. That seems really low.

Combined with his other credits, don't think he's ever created a finale that satisfied. Or even a sequel to one of his movies that lived up to the first.

Hoping ep. 9 will change that.

3 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

Rogue one was redeemed by the space battle and the Vader scene. the rest wasnt great but it held **** together until Admiral Radish delivered. thats all any of us really want, good space battles and jedi/sith dismembering eachother with maybe some blaster dudes blastering it up. decent world building is good too. Force awakens didnt really have enough of any of that to be good

I really hate the Vader scene, not because Vader kicking *** like he should, but the scene is a drama queen and makes Vader look like a tool too stupid to just crush an USB stick with the force, while the soldiers look like cowards, not being able to throw a USB stick true a ajar door.

Outside of that: A movie which has only one great space battle as redeeming feature is a **** movie, no matter how much you love that space battle. TPM had a great pod race and duel of fates will be always the tune playing in my head when going into a lightsaber battle. It still was a **** movie.

And now to something funny, even when totally exaggerated:

BTW, after re-watching the space combat scene again in a fan cut, which removes all ground combat. I must admit, the space battle itself is maybe really the best in all the movies, but the ratio and pacing between the action on the ground and with the infiltration of the base with Erso and Andor, etc is imho not doing favors to the feeling of time progression of the space battle.

The space battle watched in a space only cut looks very fluid and stringend. But when you add the maybe 20 extra minutes of ground action the pacing is screwed up. Meanwhile RotJ has a great timing for those switches from between the three scenes, space, ground and palpatine's throne room.

Full Rogue One Space Battle, it is most likely the best star wars movie space battle ever:

11 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Impressive, a lot of fans went out exited and got in line again even with TPM.
It took a while until it sunk in what a stinker TPM was.
It took a while until it sunk in what a stinker TFA was.
I guess it will take a while until it sunk in what a stinker RO is. ;-)

Lol

The critics of TFA were out in force day one. There was no sinking in time.

16 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

The prequel duels were absurd. Flipping and leaping. You say you've had training, then you'd recognize the straight from the woodcut fechtbuch scene with Rey and Kylo struggling. It was fantastic.

Lightsabers have no mass on the swing. Power strokes are literally useless against a flesh-and-blood target with them, yet you see these broad unbalanced swings that present clear opportunities for victory. Rey can be excused for this, since she's (probably) never actually used one before. Kylo, however, would have the bare minimum of experience necessary to use the thing properly. The emotion of the scene was amazing, but so was Obi-Wan suppressing his rage when Qui-Gon was killed by Maul.

TPM had rather amazing sword fighting - the double lightsaber changes things, but the moves were reasonable. Attack of the Clones was again reasonable, considering that Yoda is a 800 year old master.

The only truly crazy fight scene was the Duel of Fates, where you had two of the most powerful force users ever who have known each other since childhood in a grudge match for the fate of the universe. In this case, you'll notice that Obi-Wan holds off on the crazy flips, while arrogant Anakin does the crazy stuff to try and get an edge.

7 minutes ago, Astech said:

Lightsabers have no mass on the swing. Power strokes are literally useless against a flesh-and-blood target with them, yet you see these broad unbalanced swings that present clear opportunities for victory.

What's your source for this? Lightsabers are magic force laser swords, do you really know how they work? All we can go by is what we see on the screen. Maybe they do have some mass? We certainly see them being swung with ferocity in EP5 (best duel in all the films), and VI.

They behave more like physical swords than flashlights.

The prequel lightsaber duels are not my cup of tea.

1 minute ago, BlodVargarna said:

What's your source for this? Lightsabers are magic force laser swords, do you really know how they work? All we can go by is what we see on the screen. Maybe they do have some mass? We certainly see them being swung with ferocity in EP5 (best duel in all the films), and VI .

They behave more like physical swords than flashlights.

The prequel lightsaber duels are not my cup of tea.

The Bane trilogy gives some great insight into lightsaber combat. Furthermore, unless light itself behaves drastically differently in the Star Wars universe, the blade of light that weighs nothing must weigh... nothing.

In episode 5, Luke was doing all the heavy swinging, which Vader was happy to let him do to encourage that anger in Luke. Vader, as a fully trained master, was far more conservative.

1 minute ago, Astech said:

The Bane trilogy gives some great insight into lightsaber combat. Furthermore, unless light itself behaves drastically differently in the Star Wars universe, the blade of light that weighs nothing must weigh... nothing.

In episode 5, Luke was doing all the heavy swinging, which Vader was happy to let him do to encourage that anger in Luke. Vader, as a fully trained master, was far more conservative.

It is light contained in some sort of force field.

The way how they behave on the screen shows they have some mass.

Luke in VI beats down Vader's guard just as if he were wielding a long sword.

It's plasma contained in a force field, going by many newcanon and Legends descriptions.

1 hour ago, Ironlord said:

It's plasma contained in a force field, going by many newcanon and Legends descriptions.

Even plasma has practically no mass, at least not enough to make heavy swings useful.

6 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

The way how they behave on the screen shows they have some mass.

Luke in VI beats down Vader 's guard just as if he were wielding a long sword.

I think they look that way because they used shafts on the end of the hilt for editing purposes, thus giving some heft to it, even when there shouldn't be.

You can beat down anyone's guard provided you're far, far stronger than them. Luke was pretty much embracing the dark side in that duel, and is often portrayed as the strongest of the Skywalker lineage (even in the Legends stuff). It makes a lot of sense for Luke to be able to do this, since only a portion of the swing power comes from the momentum of the blade, and the rest is down to elbow grease.

3 hours ago, Astech said:

Even plasma has practically no mass, at least not enough to make heavy swings useful.

Depends on how dense the plasma is. Some plasma can be very dense, some can be very thin - it's not all the same.

43 minutes ago, Ironlord said:

Depends on how dense the plasma is. Some plasma can be very dense, some can be very thin - it's not all the same.

Plus it is a magic space wizard laser sword. How does anyone here know how they work?

10 hours ago, Ironlord said:

Depends on how dense the plasma is. Some plasma can be very dense, some can be very thin - it's not all the same.

Well, Plasma is just a state of matter hotter - and therefore less dense - in constant pressure conditions. If the Plasma is coming from inside the lightsaber then is of course cannot weigh more than the sabre - and likely a great deal less considering the bulk of the various parts inside of it. If the plasma is created from the atmosphere surrounding the blade, either everyone in the room suffocates immediately or it's virtually weightless.

Either way, there's no logical way for the blade to have significant heft to it except...

9 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

Plus it is a magic space wizard laser sword. How does anyone here know how they work?

That's a fair point, and one that's very hard to argue against. However, there are canonical references (mainly Clone Wars) to how a lightsaber is built and the relative size and weight of a lightsaber to its user. Sure, the exact specifications haven't been pinned down, but a vague range of specifications have been outlined, so having Rey/Finn wield a lightsaber like a long sword makes no sense whatsoever.

9 hours ago, Astech said:

Well, Plasma is just a state of matter hotter - and therefore less dense - in constant pressure conditions.

Plasma is ionised gas - the temperature or density is unimportant.

That said - fully ionised gas requires a lot of energy to produce:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)

Maybe it could be thought of as a stream of gas, comparable in nature to the interior of a lightning bolt, or the interior of the Sun's core? Whichever is closest to the effect we see of something that is very good at cutting through things.

The force field protects the wielder from the heat - so only where the weapon contacts things and the force field is broken, does the heat get through.

3 minutes ago, Ironlord said:

Plasma is ionised gas - the temperature or density is unimportant.

Plasma only occurs under specific conditions. Namely very high temperature, or low pressure. To have plasma is to have a substance that weighs less than gas at the same pressure, given the same substance is being used. If it's the low pressure scenario, then problem solved, since I can't even imagine the unnecessary complexities of a chemical compound that is appreciably dense at 0.1 PSI in gas form. If it's the high temperature side, either lightsabers are an astoundingly dangerous pressure vessel even when inactive, or they are much more reasonably only containing a small amount of plasma, thus almost no swing weight.

We know that lightsabers can be used in space, or underwater, from Rebels & TCW - which suggests that some of the gas used to create the blade can be produced from the saber itself - it's not a case of "lock field around the ambient atmosphere, and then heat up the gas in the ambient atmosphere."

11 minutes ago, Ironlord said:

We know that lightsabers can be used in space, or underwater, from Rebels & TCW - which suggests that some of the gas used to create the blade can be produced from the saber itself - it's not a case of "lock field around the ambient atmosphere, and then heat up the gas in the ambient atmosphere."

That's what I was picturing, although the lightsaber being used underwater isn't really evidence either way, since water can be turned into a plasma, just like any other substance.

Having a small amount of superheated plasma always on standby in the saber makes sense, but having a large amount (like the amount required to give a 1 meter blade decent heft) pressurised inside a tiny hilt is not only nearly impossible by conventional means, but also absurdly dangerous. Slight temperature changes could produce a truly epic explosion.

Absurdly dangerous and Star Wars tend to go together. In TCW we find that putting a part in wrong, will cause the lightsaber to explode, leaving only the crystal behind (very tough crystal).

They can also cheat the usual rules of mass - with "mass-nullification" being a technology that exists, for storage.

In Legends, we find that they can store days-worth of water needed to operate in the desert, in tiny capsules which weigh very little (Tatooine Ghost) despite the fact that water is normally incompressible.

3 minutes ago, Ironlord said:

Absurdly dangerous and Star Wars tend to go together. In TCW we find that putting a part in wrong, will cause the lightsaber to explode, leaving only the crystal behind (very tough crystal).

They can also cheat the usual rules of mass - with "mass-nullification" being a technology that exists, for storage.

In Legends, we find that they can store days-worth of water needed to operate in the desert, in tiny capsules which weigh very little (Tatooine Ghost ) despite the fact that water is normally incompressible.

The part was the "emitter matrix" put in the wrong way. Basically, sending the blade of the saber back into the hilt. I'd anticipate this hitting the power pack, thus causing the explosion.

The mass-nullification, I believe, is no longer canon. If it were, it's still an incredibly stupid idea to have something under such immense pressure inside a piece of combat equipment. You'd also have to 'disable' the strong and weak nuclear forces of the gas to get it to fit into such a tiny space. Thus, as soon as the power pack on the lightsaber runs out, you'd have an explosion like a black hole in reverse - devastatingly lethal to anything nearby. All for the sake of giving a blade which doesn't need a strong swing to cut things, thereby making every movement slower and less efficient? Just doesn't seem right...

We've seen the blade bounce off things with weak swings, in the OT.

Perhaps the force field itself generates some resistance, limiting the cutting power unless pressure is provided.