From: keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.starwars
Subject: Re: Luke's lightsaber
Date: 16 Nov 1992 04:19:01 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: punisher.caltech.edu

>>Also, there is no way to deflect large physical objects.

>Maybe not with a lightsaber, but any Jedi should be able to Force 
>something large away from himself.

I don't think so.  Just looking at the energy should tell you this.  There is
just no way that a Jedi could deflect an artillery shell or even a mere
speeding bullet with the force.  I mean, you don't think the Force could be
used to propell a bullet at those speeds, do you?  So why should the reverse
hold?  I mean, if you threw a bowling ball at Darth Vader, he'd be hosed.
He would just step out of the way, of course...

>>What?  I don't think so... you really have to concentrate to move stuff around
>>like that.  One little distraction and you'd lose control.  You are trying
>>to make the Force more powerful than it is.  It is not some magical
>>superpower that the Jedi can invoke with no thought whatsoever.  To do a trick
>>like that would be very difficult.  Also, I don't think that the Force
>>could direct a lightsaber to do such intricate movements.

>Pseudo Jedi Luke easily became distracted, but this was a few days into his
>training.  I think that you could have a WWF match, a mariachi band, and 
>a fireworks display, and Yoda wouldn't get distracted.  Remember that Luke
>in Jedi has only had less than a year of real training and he is able to 
>pick 3PO up and move him about in all three dimentions.  

I disagree.  I think that if you blew a trumpet in Yoda's ear, he'd lose his
concentration as well.

Yes, Luke did levitate C-3PO, but he certainly didn't rotate him in the air
or do any sort of fancy maneuvers.

And it isn't all that clear how much training Luke actually had.

>Obi-Wan could do mind tricks effortlessly, and his fight with Vader didn't 
>seem to require much exertion.  This is how a real Jedi works.  

The mind tricks are simple against the Stormtroopers.  Ben would be ineffective
against Jabba, for example, or just anyone who knew what he was trying to do.

>In ROTJ, Vader maneuvers his saber to slice the catwalk.  The lightsaber
>isn't a boomerang, so he had to guide it through its entire path. 

Huh?  It is just a little handle thing.  Surely any good baseball pitcher
could have done the same.

>What's to say he couldn't have made it go x number of more places before
>coming back to him?  And Vader isn't as good a Jedi as Ben is.  "If you
>strike me down, I'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
>Vader didn't know everything about the Force.  A lot less than Ben.

Well, Ben was much older and more experienced.  Remember, Ben TAUGHT Vader.

>>Well, "magnetic sealing" deflects many types of energy weapons (remember in the
>>trash compactor in Star Wars?).  I suppose it could deflect a lightsaber as
>>well.  I don't think that theh RPG is always accurate, but I seem to agree
>>with most of the things in it.

>In TESB, the snow speeder's blasters are ineffective against the AT-AT's 
>because the armor's too tough.  Now, if they were talking about the 
>physical armor, the metal coating, we'd expect to see some dents or 
>pox marks where the blasters hit, even though they couldn't penetrate
>all the way through.  This isn't the case, however, so the 'armor' must
>be a deflector shield, or magnetic field.  Now, we see Luke hop up and
>slice apart a hatch control with his lightsaber.  Therefore, we must
>assume that the lightsaber can cut through a magnetic field. 

No, you aren't looking closely.  All Luke did was knock off a hinge of a bolt
or something.  He didn't slice through anything.  There is a big difference
here.

>Something that is magnetically sealed can deflect a blaster, and so can
>a lightsaber.  Therefore, they must have something in common.  A light
>saber isn't a column of blaster fire.  If it was, it couldn't deflect it.

>My guess is that a lightsaber is a variant on the magnetic field with
>something else, that enables it to cut and gives it the glow.

I dunno what it is.  It appears to be some sort of energy, but it also
seems solid as well.

keith