There’s such things as training sabers that just sting/burn instead of cutting. I dunno how that makes sense CAUSE IT’S A LASER but whatever
It’s a beam of energy. FWIW.
Random factoid: The toy that Luke is playing with in the garage (and the vehicle outside) is a T-16 Skyhopper, as in “I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home”. Luke’s success in the X-wing (which is a T-65) is largely based on his skill from flying around that little ship.
The RPG had stats on a wooden one that weighed just as much for use in training Padawan’s…think about it…the skill and finesse needed to handle this thing, you don’t throw one at an 8 year old and say good luck kid, right?
But the balance of it would be way off unless whatever exist in the blade part of a light sabre happend to have the weight distribution of wood. So the training would have to be about as good as you can get with wodden guns (wooden swords for real one training is not as terrible since it would have some resemblence if you put weights in it of course blunt steel would be much better) I do have to wonder if you can’t just make a glowing small cylindrical forcefield projector and call it a training light sabre.
Also yes it is a wonder that any Jedi have hands one would think that a common tacti would be to slide down the blade and lop off the other guys hands since it has no cross guard to stop that not to mention any little pokes to the hands which has been a good way to win for centuaries and why such things as basket hilts existed.
I have also been wondering about force user vs force user fights whilst not a major issue in this film due to not much choriography and I guess for story only having a death seeking old man a man with robot arms and someone with just a few days training no really long exchanges of sword strokes for no apparent reason but if i see the future and move so I can kill you and you see what I will do and counter and I see that you have changed so I change so you change so I change etc shouldn’t seeing the future be useless unless one guy is better at it (I get a Dune duel image here so many paths as to just be confusing) and just look like a normal sword fight.
I remember back in the day Cracked Magazine did a Star Wars parody. The funniest scene was when he and Obi-Wan just finished watching the message.
Obi-Wan “That reminds me your father wanted you to have this.”
Luke “A paper bag?”
Obi-Wan “No idiot, this!”
Luke “Wow a flashlight!”
Obi-Wan “NO! It’s a very dangerous laser…”
ZAP! The table is cut in half
Obi-Wan “On second thought I should leave you behind.”
Another cool thing about Star Wars I learned recently, regarding the Battle of Yavin and the Trench run.
Some background: Operation Chastise. Basically the RAF did a raid on a number of German Dams in order to flood the cities. It was a very complex operation since they couldn’t hit a target as small as a Dam with a bomb from a plane. Instead, the would drop the bombs in the water outside of the Dam. They used motors to spin the bombs backwards before they were dropped in the water which let them skip on the surface of the water. The bombs would then hit the Dam and bounce back toward the bomb due to backspin.
The whole thing was dramatized in the movie “The Dam Busters”, in 1955. Many people look at the attack on the Dam from that film and have noticed it’s strong resemblance to the end of A New Hope.
Thanks to youtube, you can take a look and decide:
In any case, it’s pretty cool to see how the WWII movie, based on a true story is such a strong match to the Battle of Yavin.
Others have pointed out the end scene was also inspired by another WWII movie called “633 Squadron”. Take a look:
just wanted to throw this in here, the whole “they can’t hit anything!” parts made me laugh so…enjoy =D
Vote for your favorite GWC Podcast 312 quote(s). This poll will close on March 15th, 2012 at 09:05 PM.
I have no problems with any of the changes George Lucas has made with Star Wars. My problem is that he won’t release the original film in the best quality available. That’s all I have to say about that.
Oh and when Luke is cleaning the droids…ahem…IYKWIM… He is flying a model of his T-16 skyhopper. The T-16 is also parked behind the oil bath. It’s the ship he used to bulls-eye those womp-rats with.
You’re correct. In the Special Editions you even can see a T-16 leaving Mos Eisley during the celebrations in Return of the Jedi.
And from what I remember, it was made by the same company that makes X-wings (and snowspeeders) and had almost identical controls, which is how Luke was able to pick up on how to fly X-wings that quickly.
FINALLY!!
I knew someone would do it. It was only a matter of time. Now I have a HD version of the Original Trilogy.
So far, I’ve watched Star Wars all the way through. I am working my way through Empire and Jedi. These versions are clear and clean…well as clean as you could get Star Wars. The person who created these did a shot-by-shot color correction. I can’t compare them to the Blu-ray since I didn’t buy them (or own a Blu-ray player). I did compare them against the DVDs, though. The picture quality of the despecialized versions is far superior.
Dear George,
Thanks to Harmy, you can cancel the order of protection against me.
Yours Forcefully,
frakkintalos
I thought they used vibroswords at first? *shrug Who’s to say Wedge and others didn’t take a shot? It’s not like the movie or book covers every second of the story. Luke could also have been the only one with the force on his side, which could have influenced things. Then again what do I know I build models 
I had to dig up my old Star Wars RPG books (I ran a campaign during the Clone Wars as I called it “to fix what Lucas did” :p), to sum it up:
“Jedi Students at the age of six are trained in lightsaber use at the age of six years old and on, training lightsabers were used but mostly destroyed during the Jedi Purge. It shares many of the properties of an actual lightsaber, the same sounds, weight and difficulty to use as an actual lightsaber, however it can not cut through objects and deals non-lethal damage of 2D8+Strength, if this attack is greater then the opponents hit points, the victim is stunned for 1d6 rounds”
So in theory there are training 'sabers and that only makes sense (least to me)
OH WOW I totally forgot about my SW RPG days. Good reference smck40.
I remember it sticking in my head when I was reading through the books when I was getting ready to run the game and I got a kick out of the training saber idea and I never forgot it…glad it came in useful 
Hey, Audra, Chuck and Sean - I listened to your Ep IV commentary and really enjoyed it! I’ve been away for a while, but happened to think of GWC the other day and tuned in, and I am glad I did, and I think I’ll be back around to stay. Thanks for a really fun episode - looking forward to catching up on what you’ve been up to while I’ve been away, and to hearing many more!