i thought that it was just a regular fight, does anybody have any articles wher i can see where you got this info? because i remember mccalum saying that it was a battle between obi wan and some hydro droids, i never heard anything about sabres being in there, in fact i think i recall him denying the whole sabre idea.
Oh dear…Okay, I’m joining this group to set a few things strait. You don’t have to listen to me I don’t suppose, because I’m not a expert on star wars, but I’m a big fan and I don’t have a phd in physics, but I’m working on it. First a little pet peeve, yes lightsabers do cut and are made of energy…but Light DOES cut, high intensity beams of light (lasers) do cut, and it is the cutting in part that generates the heat and not the heat that does the cutting (that is the reason they burn some materials, but cut others). Now, lightsabers underwater, a lightsaber’s blade is made of pure energy (presumably in the form of electrical plasma) focused by a crystal and buffered in an electromagnetic containment field being emitted from the magnetic projection plate. For standard use it is being used in a low density environment (air), and in this environment it generates no heat, therefore expending no energy, and losing no charge. If it were being used in a high density environment (water) a simple modification of lowering the cycling rate of the blade (how often the energy completes a circuit) and increasing the electromagnetic field strength would compensate for the density difference and enable use of the weapon. This is of course assuming that basic physics applies to lightsaber operation as modified in this way!
Cinematically or realistically, an underwater lightsaber fight would just not work. It seems to me that a saber's blade has no weight, so it probably has no mass either. Even a slight amount of water pressure, simply being fully submerged in water, would cause the water to push in on it and extinguish it. I'll use a lighter as an example. You can flick your bic in the rain, but if its so wet it won't catch a spark you can't ignite it. I think the same basic principle would apply to a lightsaber.
Cinematically, it would be horrible. Even if Lucas could imagine up some waterproof saber, think of how many bubbles all that evaporated and/or displaced water would have to create to make it look believable. Every swoosh of a saber would make a wall of bubbles, or it would end up phony looking, like some of the 'underwater' scenes in LotR.
Masterjedi, you are making a the same mistake of trying to apply real science to Star Wars again! I think you could be in danger of that as well, Creechur. Truth is, this works whatever the way GL wants it to, and science be damned. When they wrote TPM, he decided they did not work underwater. But now he might have decided that they can.
About the only thing we do know is that they deliberately keep the shadows of lightsabres, even using effects work to sharpen them up, so they have some form of physical presence.
Ush, you give Lucas too much power over his creation. I know that sounds strange, but even a creator has to follow some rules!
Sure you can get away with messing with physical laws and whatnot, but you have to stick to the laws you make. More importantly, it is a filmakers job to trick us, to make us believe something. While our conscious mind is following a movies story, our unconscious mind is on the lookout for little errors...things that if they happened in real life would cause us to do a double take.
The one thing that will ruin a movie for me is to not believe what I'm seeing. The best part about the majority of the FX shots in LotR was that they were sooo believable. They integrated into the live action so well that your brain could just keep following the story. Whenever youre trying to figure out how an effect was done instead of just watching the movie unfold, the filmmaker has failed.
So, all science aside, I still say the scene would be unshootable. To make my brain believe they were underwater, there would have to be so many bubbles...you wouldn't even need to film the fight! Just put bubbles onscreen for about 5 minutes, with "VRRRrrmmmm" sound effects.
Sorry Ushgarak, I just apply science because I am a scientist...it only makes sense to me after looking at the origanal Lucus material on lightsabers, thats all. I'm not saying that lightsabers will work submerged, just proposing a way they could, if they did. I can't make GL take back his own rules, but it would be nice if he listened to reason! 😎
what?
Sorry Ushgarak, I just apply science because I am a scientist...it only makes sense to me after looking at the origanal Lucus material on lightsabers, thats all. I'm not saying that lightsabers will work submerged, just proposing a way they could, if they did. I can't make GL take back his own rules, but it would be nice if he listened to reason!
in a world of flying space ships, laser pistols, droids, aliens and people using their minds to choke people, i really dont think that science has any say in the situation
Yup, I agree with Dark Assassin and yerssot- science has no say in at at all. I don't really see your position as tenable, Creechur.
Lucas has, in any case, established very few rules. But in any case, I still have not seen any firm evidence that this is actually going to happen- as far as I know, GL has not changed his mind and they do not work underwater. One just has to be open to the possibilities, is all.
let's just agree that every medium, be it air or water or vacuum would need a specialized lightsaber crystal to compensate for density. hence mr. fisto using a completely different animal of saber in the clone wars. the standard issue lightsaber is meant to be used for open air of some standard variable of densities because most worlds that the jedi patrol have that kind of terrain. for under water combat or slimey combat or combat in space, a jedi would hang up his or her personal lightsaber and get a specialized one from the armory, at the jedi temple, probably the third floor, second door on the left next to Kriv'lak's force philosophy class and starbuck's
To be honest, there ISN'T much point discussing how sabres work. And no, there isn't really any logic to it beyond what is stylistically appropriate in GL's mind.
And as GL tells it, the crystals are only batteries (anyone who thinks different is getting it from the EU) so they would have no effect on density.