Have to disagree with Star Wars.

Without the massive appeal the series built, this movie wouldn't get many good reviews at all. The plot is an insane jumble of random events and plotholes that should have been embarrassing. To enumerate a few:

1) Randomly Melennium Falcon happens to be at the right place, right time (I can buy this, barely, because it's fun)

2) Before they can even have a full conversation (something the filmmakers seemed determined to avoid, even though, as this list shows, dialogue can make riveting cinema) HS and Chewie burst in. I could buy into this, if not for the rapid-fire pace of these events, as it is it just seems random and things are starting to get silly.

3) Before THEY can even have a full conversation not one, but two gangs HAPPEN upon the group, for no reason, except some executive was apparently worried about giving the audience a moment to reflect and MAYBE develop some connection with the characters.

4) Kylo Ren kicks ass. He's the only Force master EVER to stop a blaster bolt mid progress. He's got some serious juice!

5) Kylo Ren can't fight his way out of a paper bag (a bag named Finn) narrowly winning the fight and merely wounding the otherwise fairly useless ex-stormtrooper.

6) Kylo Ren is BEATEN by some chick with no training whatsoever! (Don't get me wrong, I like Rey, but the good guys are SUPPOSED to be weaker than the bad guys, and what's the point in Jedi training if she already kicks Evil's ass? )

7) WTF is up with this whiny Emo? He is, bar-none, the worst villain of the entire SW series thus far. It's not surprising that they defeat him, he's so useless, what's surprising is it takes them so damn long to beat his whining Emo shitty-at-lightsaber-duelling ass.

IMO the whole film was a hot mess that reeked of far too much studio interference which turns artistic vision into "more explosions!"

In summary, and this is totally true, my ten-year-old son, who loved the first 3 SWs (I won't let him watch the prequels) when asked what he thought of it replied, "Too many explosions." This is the mediocrity paradigm of big-budget Hollywood films at it's pinnacle.

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Ah, sweet childhood memories of flashlight lightsaber fights, Star Wars toys and Halloween costumes, now cut to you playing Battlefront and having some 13 year old brat screaming obscenities in your ear that would make a demon blanch.

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Star wars: modern lightsaber battle has been added as a related post - related requested by Fantomas.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Star-wars-modern-lightsaber-battle

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Whoever put this together is rather dishonest.
NC: "These lightsaber battles looked prettier (but the plot/characters sucked)"
P: "These lightsaber battles suck because of the plot/characters (but at least they look pretty)"

OH THEY'RE SO DIFFERENT!


Truckchase, he's none of those things. The Big Bang Theory?! If you also think that TBBT is cheap, lousy comedy then NC might be right up your street. He's definitely not upbeat.

I must be the only one who found both of these people to be kind of annoying, in one corner we have Cynical Nerd and in the other we have Upbeat Nerd, what better pairing for a YouTube deathmatch.
I thought the lightsaber fights in both trilogies were fine, they were just following different models, I thought the acrobatics of the newer films was fun to watch. And why bother making everyone pretend that they're swinging around claymores when both the film makers and the audience know those energy blades probably weigh next to nothing?
I always kind of assumed the wooden acting (especially with the Jedi) came from Luca's directing, I imagine he was shooting for a kind of Zen sense of cool but didn't manage to find the right balance.
And I'll never understand why some people hate CG so much, it's a tool that can be used well or poorly, just like models and miniatures and fully built sets. But from the way some people talk about it you'd think life before CG was all some kind of golden age where everything was perfect.

Couldn't agree more on the lightsaber fights.

I think it was Lucas himself who asked that the lightsaber should be moved as if it had real weight even though it was made of, well, light. I think the fact the actors appear to have to exert themselves to throw and parry blows makes the whole thing seem more intense despite the slower pace of the fight. Vader crumbles under the shear force of the enraged Luke's blows - does anybody ever get overpowered in this manner in the prequels? I understand this logic that Jedi at the height of the Republic would be more skilled with a blade, but it results in two characters flailing around striking the air in front of their opponent with blows that appear to have no force behind them at all.

I was thinking it was more like a super powerful version of this....
http://videosift.com/video/3D-Display-Projects-Images-Into-Mid-Air-No-Screen
That removes all the need for lightsaber-proof material to make one, and explains how the length and shape are created.
I must admit, I have not looked deep into Star Wars lore to see what their explanation is.

I'm sorry, but that sith lightsaber was killer awesome!

I think color could be achieved by having the ionization at a different frequency so it produces photons on a colored wavelength.

What I want to know is:
1) does it fry the flesh from your skeleton if you stick your hand in the middle?
and
2) how long until we can get lightsabers?

for those that didn't have time to watch the whole thing here's the answer, (spoiler alert) - Today: NO. 50 years from now: MAYBE.

My main issue with his design is the ceramics - sure they can withstand heat, but they are brittle. So if 2 lightsabers of his design clashed together, they would just shatter into small pieces and you'd have huge plasma firehoses for a few seconds until everyone was dead.