The Force... vs. Gunkata.

[athelind]

From yet another Phantom Heresy Essay:

And why is the lightsaber the preferred weapon of characters the Force (filmmaker) favors?

Guns are awful from a cinematic point of view. You can’t defend against a gunshot, and because gunshots are almost always serious, the combatants have to either keep missing each other to string it out (in which case they both end up looking useless), or they have to accidentally drop their guns and switch to their kung-fu skills.

George Lucas solved this problem by bringing in the sword, long surpassed in the real world but still superior for cinematic purposes, and changing the rules so this archaic device was back at the cutting edge.

In the saga, the lightsaber is both the badge of Force favor -- it takes great skill and Force ability to wield -- and the most immediate benefit of having the Force with you. Hapless minor characters are forced to rely on blasters, which a lightsaber can easily reflect back.

And the action scenes are better. Lightsabers allow both combatants to be incredibly skilful and still not kill each other instantly -- as they would if they were armed with guns -- and the Force presses this advantage by bestowing multiple cool techniques on those it favors, Force-throws, jumps, flips, outright telekinesis.

Kurt Wimmer took a different approach to the same problem in Equilibrium.

Comments

[soreth.livejournal.com]

Kurt Wimmer took a different approach to the same problem in Equilibrium.

....Right up until resorting to swords again. :)

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the katana fight wasn't the Big Climactic Oh My Gawd I Can't Beleive These Moves fight. After it was over, he out-did himself with SPOILER ALERT -- Censored until normanrafferty watched the damned DVD!!

[stalbon.livejournal.com]

Actually, with Grievous wielding lightsabers, we take out the 'Force-necessary' requirement. True, he was trained by Dooku and all, but most of the books and behind-the-scenes things seem to want to point out that he cannot use the force at all, he's just a very well-trained user of the 'sabers.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

I imagine Grievous, as a mechanical entity, can do many of the things that would require the Force in organics -- Force runs, Force jumps, Force reflexes. Young Manakin's "Jedi reflexes" made him a podracing legend, but an astromech droid with a suitably fast processor could have done as well or better. The difference between anticipating where someone will aim a blaster and moving fast enough to block the shot once it's enroute is minor at best.

Of course, lightsabers do not have a blunt side or edge, so any training accidents have serious consequences for those who cannot simply attach a spare arm, even if droids were trained and not programmed.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Gaaah, you're all missing the point!
The POINT is, a Grammaton Cleric would kick ALL of their asses.

That's why they made Christian Bale BATMAN.

[stalbon.livejournal.com]

While Grievous' body is mechanical, his mind is still biological, simply very well-tampered and tuned with to keep up to speed on his body. It is, undoubtably, the only way any droid could really wield lightsabers. His body is state of the art and more than capable of adapting to opponents' styles and his own lightning-fast reflexes, but his mind has to be flexible enough to think openly on how to fight, not to just wade in mindlessly as a regular droid might.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the books and behind the scenes stuff, but he did a "Force Push" at least once in Clone Wars.

My rule of thumb on "Extended Universe" stuff is that stuff that makes it to the screen trumps printed source material.

[stalbon.livejournal.com]

I must have missed that, I'm afraid. Even if I saw it, I'd not be so sure. *Shrugs* Still, I far prefer Extended Universe to the films, simply because of the far greater variety and development. Who would Bossk be but some guy in a suit were it not for books and other material other than the film?

[baiji.livejournal.com]

I always found Episode two a bit of pleasure, just to see Jango Fett slap Obi-Wan around somewhat on Kamino. Sure, its not as impressive as a full on fight, but it at least shows that in the right trigger happy hands, blasters/guns can still be a healthy match against lightsabers. Course, I get the same fuzzy feeling inside when reading about the Yuuzhan Vong in the New Jedi order bashing Jedi left and right with living, organic weapons. Take that gem powered laser pointers.

As for Grievous, at least in the cartoon version, I thought he did at least one force push (arguably, cartoon Grievous is going to be better than the movie version. Nothing more bad-ass than chasing down an elevator from the outside on the building's side.). Course, this could be attributed to his training and what oragics there is intermeshed with the robotic improvements. While probably lacking the mass of meat needed to house the minochlorians for extended force usage, he probably can still take wild attempts at the force if he wants (at the very least, if the Jedi can sense how wicked he is, there must be some force affluence in Grievous. The extended universe has shown a few races completely free of the force and the effect such plays on Jedi sensing them).

[kolchis.livejournal.com]

I don't know if anybody cares, but I followed up Athe's link to Kurt Wimmer and discovered that Mr. Wimmer has/is adapting an all-time favorite british TV series, ULTRAVIOLET, concerning a struggle for survival between normal humans and vampires.

This Will Rawk.