Some thoughts about lightsabers in real life 

I tried half swording with a lightsaber... didn't turn out so well

A lightsaber in real life would be more widely used than any blaster for one simple reason: it would be the tool of choice for metal workers, carpenters, builders, and construction workers. The ultimate cutting tool on the go.

Luke Skywalker: *is handed one of the most dangerous weapons in the galaxy* *immediately points at face*

4:01 Skallagrim invents YEET 3 years before it becomes popular

A lot of the problems with lightsabers can be remedied by the ultimate plot device the force

I find your lack of faith disturbing

love the conclusion here. can just see an indiana jones style scene with a sith lord doing all the fancy shit then someone just pulling out a revolver.

Lol it would melt the lead but do to the Lightsaber not actually slowing the bullets at all you'd just get sprayed by molten lead at high velocity

6:01 In the old canon (I.E. before the Disney purchase) traditional guns did exist. Most people don't use them, because Blasters provide so many benefits (a modern assault rifle normally holds 30 bullets, while even a blaster pistol could fire 500 times before you needed too "reload"), but they do give advantages against Lightsaber users. Unlike a blaster bolt, the "slugthrower" bullets melt and pass through the lightsaber. So, instead of having a regular bullet flying at your face, now you have MOLTEN LEAD flying at your face instead at the same velocity.

But does lightsabers have screwable pummels?

No Pommel? 0/10 would end rightly.

he likes star wars as much as he likes katanas

Well, the SW-Lightsabers have a safety, sometimes it´s a clip or even a hidden lever to make it unusable for anyone but the owner. Also, some require a touch with the force to activate.

The weightlessness of the blade is the main reason only Jedi can use a lightsaber to any effectiveness. They have to use the force to "feel" where the blade is.

mandalorian metal can resist lightsaber attacks. too bad they did not make a sword from that material.

Neat force trick...Activate your opponent's lightsaber, while still on his belt. Fun for the Whole Family!

The reason only jedi/sith (force users) use the lightsaber is because they have the impossibly good reflexes that come with being strong with the force. Most people use blasters because for a normal person, bringing a sword to a gun fight is suicide, but because force users have a sort of "spidey sense" that allows them to react faster and deflect blasts, the lightsaber is preferred. If someone is highly trained in swordplay, but doesn't have these force powers they use something called a "vibrosword" that energizes a more traditional blade in a way that allows the wielder to deflect lightsabers and energy weapons without the risk of a massless blade.

Lightsabers ARE plasma swords! At least they were in the original canon.

"and yes, Jedi are highly trained" - except Rei, or Poe....or anyone in episode VII...

The M16 - The Ultimate Jedi Slayer

Can't jedis just stop real bullets with force, like Neo?

I think a shotgun would be the most effective way to shoot a Jedi. They can deflect bolts from blasters (apparently both the bolts and the lightsaber 'blades' have some kind of mass), but that lightsaber blade can only be at one place at a time. Also, considering how many get their arms and hands cut off, it's amazing they don't have some kind of guard.

“one wrong move and YEET, you cut off your arm” 😂😂😂

I'm impressed you correctly pointed out that the blade of the lightsaber most likely won't have any noticeable weight to it. I find that a lot of swordfighting channels fail to realize this and take it into account in their commentary, but it is in fact an important point in the lore. It is the reason why it's almost impossible for the lightsaber to be used by non-Force users; Force-users are able to still mentally track the blade by sensing it through the Force since the crystal being used as an energy source is partly charged by the Force during the construction process.

Well done! I have been resisting the calls for a lightsabre video for a long time now!

"normal firearms would kill jedis" say that to MATRIX

Lightsabers - "The weapon of a Jedi, not as clumsy as a blaster, an elegant weapon from a more civilized age" In this one line we can surmise that as a matter of general knowledge, the creation and use of lightsabers it was not. The very nature behind the it's use is reliant on ones ability to connect with or use the force, prior to Disney the lore behind them stems with ancient Jedi first using actual swords that they imbued/enchanted using the force, as well as "proto-sabers" which had a belt holster battery pack. Not to mention the crystals used are completely force atuned, so literally the weapon of a cult of space wizards and no one else lol Love what you do, keep doing it!

It is heavily implied that saber blades have “weight”. Saber “Maces” are a thing in the extended Star Wars universe. They are essentially much thicker lightsabers wielded exclusively by stronger species.

There's one thing you haven't addressed in your video, Skallagrim: the design of the grips. Look up lightsaber grips on Google Image Search. They don't look at all ergonomic. They're thick and they all have bits jutting out. How are you supposed to hold those things, never mind fight with them?

George Lucas has said that light-sabers do have mass in their blade, which is also why in the original trilogy they are often wielded with two hands, in the prequels they are a bit more mobile because those were trained jedi, unlike Luke in the first movie.

y'know +Skallagrim, I just realized. that in the fight between Obi-Wan and Vader in the original movie they actually fight like ACTUAL Swordsman.

okay man, I've seen a few of your videos now and they've all been great, but at 0:35 I totally clicked subscribe. great stuff haha awesome channel.

Lightsabers are dumb to have when you live in a world where you can force choke a person threw a tv screen...

A high speed molten lead mist would be a horrible way to get offed.

this is your best vids yet. I'm a swordsman and I've possed the exact same questions. you NEED tactile feedback for a sword type weapon to work. also if you "BLOCKED" a vertical attack from a steel sword with this type of weapon it would just burn straight through at point of contact and the two portions would continue on. one through empty space in front of you,the other into your head from momentum

Well, I guess the final summary could be: The biggest draw back of lightsabers is that only force users can use them.

coudn't a jedi just stop a bullet with the force?

This is excellent. All these issues are noted in the Star Wars books as well, one of the major aspects of learning to use a lightsaber is that it is a nigh-weightless weapon, relying almost entirely upon the strength of the user rather than any weight or mass provided by the weapon itself. They also have, as expressed in the video, a safety catch. This is attributed to why a lightsaber immediately deactivates if it gets dropped. The saber is only active while the safety catch is depressed, the moment it gets released the blade turns back off. Oh, and yes, a lead projectile firearm (called a 'slug thrower' in Star Wars) is considered to be far more threatening to a Jedi than a blaster. There's a novel where Master Yoda himself is forced into retreat because assassin droids armed with flechete round slug throwers are sent after him instead of standard blaster weaponry. Yoda over comes this later on by, ya know, being a telekinetic space wizard who can go all Neo The One on the droids and force the flechete to stop in midair. But yeah, all the issues you address are completely accurate to the issues discussed in the lore of the series as well. Very cool to see discussed by someone with actual proficiency in weaponry!

haha you crack me up with your intros at times. Glad I subscribed.

It's actually a thing in the expanded universe, that non-Jedi who attempt to use a lightsaber usually end up rather messily dead, or at least missing a limb or two. The weapons are almost completely impossible to use without the Force, but _with_ the Force, they become very useful as they have the capability to deflect incoming blaster bolts and can be "thrown" (really telekinetically guided) with the Force to turn them into a spinning, enemy-seeking doom blade. People who aren't Force-sensitive tend to use actual swords (usually vibro-weapons), sometimes made with a material that allowed them to safely parry a lightsaber. Though some Old Republic-era and earlier Sith favored actual swords due to the whole "feel of slicing through flesh with a metal blade" thing. They were kind of jerks. And that was my incredibly geeky post for the day. (I actually have fallen out of love with Star Wars as a fandom, despite loving it as a kid and teenager, due to the whole nobility-demigod fantasy, not to mention the whole AI slavery stuff.)

Something a lot of star wars fiction and fans forget is that a lightsaber is a tool, and a symbol of a different time. As a symbol, it had more power then as a weapon. In tabletop games and some fiction I've written, I've had a jedi who didn't even carry a lightsaber. That doesn't make him any less of a Jedi. Is it an ultimate weapon? No. Far from it. But can it intimidate people and embolden others by it's mere presence?... that is it's real power there.

You covered pretty much every thought about lightsabers that I had as a child. The one about conventional guns is the most interesting--I haven't seen them deflect fully-automatic blaster fire, so Id like to see how they put up against an assault rifle or whatnot. Great vids!

I think it is really funny that Skall basically just had the exact same thoughts as the Mandalorians in-universe. Lightsabers only block lasers, so shotguns just make red hot slag when Jedi try to block them. (Also flamethrowers work too)

Well the lightsaber could still be a saber, as it's essentially one edge, just in 360 degrees. Also, when it comes to metal swords in the Star Wars universe, it brings to mind the vibroblade or vibrosword, which are swords wrapped in a weave which allows the metal to vibrate at a frequency that matches the frequency of a lightsaber in most, if not all, cases. Of course, using a vibrosword over a lightsaber still has more drawbacks than promotions. And when it comes to lead, they would use the Force the same way Neo just stops the bullets in The Matrix.

*Skallagrim 1 - Lightsabers 0* XD

*I always liked how Skall grossly undermines painful accidents as "unpleasant."*

Question for Star Wars fans, do conventional firearms exist in the Star Wars universe?

Maybe light sabers can't stop normal bullets. I imagine that Jedi would be able to stop them with the force kind of like how Neo does it.

I'm actually glad that you mentioned how shotguns would be the ideal weapon for dealing with Jedi. Ballistic weapons actually exist in Star Wars lore, they are referred to as "Slug-throwers", ones that fire scattered rounds and flechette are actually used to hunt and kill force users because of how effectively they counter the lightsaber.

0:57 Skall: ....it would suck off Me: imma stop u right there... LOVE IT

Boba Fett actually had a gun specially made to fire shotgun-like rounds in order to better kill Jedi. And any force user (Sith or Jedi) would be pretty well screwed if someone had a blaster with a scatter gun modification.

When you mentioned shotguns, that is a very good point. I never thought about that. Even with the force, and even with the ability to deflect projectiles, the lightsaber would not be wide enough to defend against an entire spray of buckshot coming at you all at the same time. Now I've got this funny image in my head of a Jedi instantly getting killed by a generic stormtrooper with a shotgun, over and over again.

Although Skall was on the edge(haha) of offending SW fans in some moments, the idea of melted bullets killing Jedi makes the whole video just wonderful.

"More of a plasma sword than a light saber..." *eyes roll out of their sockets* love the videos keep it up

In a recent episode of Star Wars Rebels it was actually finally adressed that a lightsaber actually feels like a normal sword, in the episode a non force user gets training in lightsaber combat and she points out how the saber is heavier than imagined. So the lightsaber actually feels like it has mass.

jedi use the force to "feel" the blade and avoid cutting themselves, also, about grabbing the "blade", you just need a mandalorian crushgaunt, that's a glove made of Beskar, a metal that can resist lightsabers quite easily.

There's a reason why you rarely ever see non-Jedi use them in SW. Without the supernatural abilities granted by the force and the lifetime of training to go with it, they're useless. Of course that what you have to remember about Jedi, they have supernatural reflexes. They're fucking space wizards.

"Ahhhh, my one weakness ... bullets!" - Darth Vader 2017

5:54 Funny you should mention that, because there is a PS1 game called "Jedi Power Battles". You can deflect projectiles back at the enemies that shoot them in it; but there is a level on Tatooine in which it specifically mentions that the tusken raiders use lead bullets which cannot be deflected back at them, only blocked.

If you go deep into the starwars lore, there have been instances of characters using standard solid ammunition weapons.

In canon things here: -Lightsabers are in fact made of plasma and are enveloped in electromagnetic force fields that keep the heat relatively close to the blade. This prevents the wielder from being burned just by turning it on. -All Lightsabers have strong gyroscopic effects making a swing of one difficult to stop once it starts. This can be compensated for using The Force but most Lightsaber wielding combatants are not skilled enough in The Force to remove it substantially. The longer the Lightsaber blade is, the stronger it's gyroscopic effect. -Firearms that launch actual bullets are in fact banned in the Star Wars universe. This law has been in effect for a very long time and the manufacturing and existence if these weapons is very rare.

Lightsabers do have somewhat of a safetey because everytime ive seen an ignited lightsaber either dropped or otherwise released from the warriors hand it always shuts off so it seems that the ignition/activation button or switch must be constantly depressed or put in an on positon in order to keep the "blade" ignited

You're absolutely right about the traditional projectile firearms thing. That actually came up in a couple of games and books I know of. Noob jedi were torn apart by what they called "primitive projectile rifles" and while a master or more experienced jedi could escape or survive, their lightsabers were useless against them and could only rely on the Force. On the other hand, the elite troopers of the Republic wore heavy armor that repelled the shells and didn't need any unusual training to deal with that. So you just took a quick look at everyone's favourite geek weapon and saw right to its weakness. That would actually work even better than you might expect because no one in their galaxy would expect that unless they had experienced it already.

Yes but Jedis lived a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. No lead bullets in that universe it would seem. Haha still enjoy your videos.

Hello there ;) I really like your videos! But since you are doing some "reviews" of fictional weapons, could you also make one about the Chainsword of the Warhammer 40'000 Universe? I'd really like to hear your thoughts about it! Keep up the good work! ^^

i'm so glad you brought up the fact that it doesn't have any weight. the expanded universe explains that you have to be force sensitive to even effectively use the lightsaber

What you talked about with lead projectiles actually happened recently in a Star Wars Comic. Anakin and Obi-Wan were on a planet that wasn't super advanced yet and they were using projectile based weapons. Obi-Wan blocked it and got molten metal on himself. I think the advantage of a light saber in the SW universe where almost everyone is using laser weapons is that it can block those bolts. If they are true lasers then that means they'd have to travel at the speed of light so the ability to block those has to either be pure luck or through force based precognition. So since so much of it comes down to a fantastical element I don't think practicality for a real person really enters into it. But hey that's just my two cents.

I seriously have no idea how a blaster can be better the a regular gun. Blaster: Can be deflected, a super shiny tracer begging your opponent to find and kill you, burn damage only (not sure about this one) Regular gun: Cannot be deflected, tracer rounds is optional, bullet expansion inside the body causing massive damage + optional incendiary rounds.

I´d like to come back to the issue of the light saber not having weight: Even if it doesn´t, the heated blade will probably encounter some form of air resistance when swung, hence the infamous sound effects in Star Wars. That being said, as you pointed out correctly, the lightsabers as displayed in Star Wars must require a ludicrous amount of energy to operate. This means for one, the power source/light generator will likely get really hot, so putting that in the handle seams not very wise. Even more dangerously, pumping that much energy into "light" would mean that the saber would not be one of the trademarked color pallet for light sabers (or uniformly red for the dark side), but blindingly bright, and even more UV radiation than visible light. Basically what I am saying is, you would be toasting yourself just by switching it on, and microwaving your eyeballs instantly. (On a side note, if we are to believe the colors of the light blades, the siths should be uniformly handicapped since red light is the least energetic part of the visible spectrum. May just be they keep loosing because of some bad corporate design decisions.)

I was disappointed that you didn't discuss flicking it off and on quickly to pass another jedi's guard. This never happens in the movies but just seems like a sweet move when or even before the blades are locked.

Hey dude, thanks for doing a vid on this topic. I thought I should just mention something with regards to the weight of a light saber's "blade'. It's a common misconception that it is in fact weightless, but it has been discussed in a couple of the comics but more notably on the recent TV animated series Star Wars - Rebels. The kyber crystal inside the mechanism that powers the whole thing is highly in tune with the force, which is why jedis are so responsive to it and vice-versa. Being the case - what it does instead of bearing weight, is create an amount of resistance against movement. Striking, swinging, blocking, everything is affected by that. The best example I can give is to imagine how astronauts exercise in space to maintain muscle mass and fitness when there is a lack of gravity. That's kinda how the light saber works and does indeed give the user a sense of "weight". It's only when they master the sense of flow between their own control of the force and the kyber crystal's resonance that they exhibit a more floating kind of movement to their attack and defence. They have to be in sync and focused. It's the same reason when you see two opponents locking lightsabers that the "blade" hums brighter and louder when they are pushing back harder. It's not muscles. It's the force the jedi/sith is channeling through the blade to redirect its resistance onto the opponent. Like any weapon, it's the years of training that makes the wielding of it look effortless. Though mass is not technically the correct term to apply, there is definitely a sense of heft and physical presence to the weapon from pommel to tip that is more than purely visual. Bearing in mind we're discussing something purely fictional (for now). I hope that sheds some light on the matter : ) P.S. I also know this video was posted prior to the sources I mentioned, but thought the updated info might be useful for some followers.

Jedi should have armor made of small lightsabers, so if they were shot by a laser gun or hit with another lightsaber, they would bounce right off.

Light saber battles are cool, but you really need to not over think them otherwise they really start to not make any kind of logic. There is just so much non sense. - I don't know much about sword fighting, but considering light sabers do not appear to need momentum to cut, striking a light saber is useless. I'm pretty sure it would be pretty easy to just block your light saber against the light saber's opponent and then let your light saber slip toward the hands of you opponent and cut his fingers/wrist/forearms (especially since light sabers don't have hand guards). - Assuming light sabers are weightless, why don't they make longer ones ? They could even choose the size during the battle and use this as an advantage. - Jedis can shoke people. Well, at least sith lords or whatever. What's the point of fighting with a light saber when you can choke ? If you can choke, you can manipulate body parts. If you can manipulate body parts, why do they not block their opponent arms ? - Same remark with hand lighting bolt. Who needs a light saber if you can just point your hands out and electocute them. - Same remark with freaking telekinesis. Why not use like a dozen lightsabers at the same time ? Why not turn off your opponent light saber pushing the button with the force ? Why not pulling off the power source ?

There is a safety mechanism. There are pressure sensors on the hilt, so that if the lightsaber is dropped or flies out of a grip, the lightsaber turns off. It also doesn't turn on if pressure is not applied. Sometimes the force is used to apply pressure to the lightsaber so it can be thown.

skallagrim hi I just started watching your stuff and your great to watch but I just want to say something about the led bullet part so I think if the bullet hits the sword it will be instantly disintegrated and as for a shotgun or machine gun as one of the other comments say Jedi and sixth use the force to help them deflect things and in the bane books there is a part where he is practicing and it starts to rain and as a test he continues to train in the rain with the goal of not getting wet and stops every drop from hitting him so yeah I can see the same being done with guns anyway sorry for the long post and keep up the good work:)

I think there are several advantages to a lightsaber over a conventional sword: 1) Compact storage. You can't keep a full-length sword in your pocket. 2) Ability to deflect projectiles. If the blades have some mass (which from the way they swing them in the movies, they must), this would even work against lead bullets. Although, a shotgun blast would be pretty impossible to block completely. 3) Assuming the blades have mass, you wouldn't have the problem of a weightless blade.

My biggest problem with blasters over slug throwers is there is absolutely no way to stay concealed while firing. One shot and everyone on the battlefield knows exactly where you are.

In the old Expanded Universe it was said that there were gyroscope-like mechanisms inside the hilt to simulate the blade having weight/mass when the lightsaber was activated. I don't know if that's still a thing in the canon, but considering all of the lightsaber duels that you see in the films look as though the blade has some weight im going to believe that this is still a feature of the lightsaber.

20 seconds into the video and already smiling. Love you stallagrim :D

i now imagine there is a jedi hospital that is devoted to treating accidental lightsaber wounds.

I might be mistaken, but, I'm sure I read somewhere that any Jedi with at least a modicum of training in the Force can block or deflect standard projectiles with just their power alone.. The reason this doesn't work with blaster bolts is something to do with it just being a mass of energised particles as opposed to a solid object, meaning the Jedi cannot "catch" it with the Force.. There was a technique that could be used to deflect blasters (I forget the name of it), but I think only really high level masters can pull it off, hence the need for lightsabers. Don't quote me on any of this though.

if my memory doesn't fail, the part in wich you talk about you harming yourself with your own weapon happened at the end of stars wars 2, when anakin fights dooku, dooku makes a weird move in wich anaking(who's parring) ends up with his wrist in an akward position, so dooku can easly outforce him and cut his leg a little

For a safety, there could be a pin attached to the belt that holds it so it can only be activated when taken off the belt. Or if it is attached magnetically, there could be something where it can only turn on in the absence of a strong magnetic field.

For those saying that Jedi could dodge real bullets, that actually isn't the case. Plasma weapon ammo moves slower than real bullets, and in the Star Wars extended universe there are numerous bounty hunters that specialize in Jedi hunting that use "slug throwers" (the Star Wars universe's way of saying normal guns) in their hunts. Its not just that most jedi are to slow to dodge bullets, the other advantage real bullets provide is that they cannot be deflected/reflected like blaster shots can, and even though a lightsaber will melt a bullet, the molten metal is still going to be moving in the same direction at the same velocity it was while solid.

Know what ticked me off about star wars? The armor. You're telling me that energy weapons have been around for god knows how long, but nobody has developed armor that can counter the weapons? Seriously? And to make it worse, the "armor" that they do have can't even defend against PRIMITIVE weapons! In episode 6, the ewoks were mowing down stormtroopers with with bows and arrows! It's pathetic!

On light sabre blade weight. The in-game lore of the Jedi Knight 2 game implies that the length, density and weight of the blade can be adjusted, depending on the situation's need, or the user's style (longer heavy 2 hand style with big swings, versus a shorter 1 hand style with quick swings for e.g.). So they do seem to have weight in the blade, as far as that 'lore' goes. And on that point, photons do have mass.

There is actually a sort of "safety" feature to them and is one of the reasons you don't generally see jedi throw their weapons all that much. They actually need pressure around the hilt along with the button press to actually activate

In the Star Wars expanded universe, conventional firearms (known in universe as "slowthrowers") are used on several occasions to kill light saber wielders such as Jedi (makes you wonder why the Jedi don't use firearms against the Sith.) They're also portrayed as being far more reliable in harsh environments than blasters. Apparently, the only reason firearms aren't more widely used is because of the skill required to compensate for their ballistic trajectory compared to blasters whose bolts are not affected by gravity. Source: starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Slugthrower

Best Jedi Weapons Master ever. Hear that Disney ? Make a Darth Skallagrimus character.

"But you may still die from a shotgun blast through your face" is this the best outro ever ?

Some of the expanded universe material covers a lot of these points, such as: - Safeties. Many Jedi had two switch safeties on their lightsabers, or grip based safeties that would shut the lightsaber off automatically if no one was holding it. Others put the on switches inside the lightsaber housing so that only someone with telekinesis could actually flip it. - Of course lightsabers can block and deflect blaster bolts, which is the most common projectile they'd have to worry about. You don't have to worry about dudes with guns so much when you can send their shots right back at them. - Slugthrowers, the Star Wars word for normal gunpowder guns, are an extremely effective Jedi-killing weapon since they can't be deflected by lightsabers. People who expect to fight Jedi will often pack slugthrowers for exactly that reason.

Lightsabers do have some sort of deadman switch on them. . . note how, whenever a Jedi (or Sith) is disarmed, the lightsaber turns itself off. It could be something as simple as a sensor which detects the electrical charge of the wielder's skin. This would also protect against accidental activation.

What I like about a lightsaber, taking everything you say here into account, is that you indeed have to be a jedi or sith: a super highly trained and force attuned person, to make use of this weapon effectively. I hope the new films put a new emphasis on that, because the Force is an essential aspect of making the weapon work, and I really like that. It deepens the link between the warrior and the weapon. As dumb as the thing would be in ANY other world in ANY other person';s hand, it makes complete sense in a Forcewielder's. Not many fictional stories have warriors/weapons like that in them.

A light-saber, may be a possible weapon as Kyle Hill demonstrates on the channel "The Nerdist" in his show "Because science" Where he actually shows the probability and theory and current known world technology's. Rather instead of it being a photonic blade, it would actually be a plasma charged fine thin rod that extends from the hilt. So picture an old phone where it had an antennae which extended from the phone. If you were to make a rod like this, only as thin as the filament of a lightbulb, one could possibly charge it enough that it would resemble a lightsaber.

I was thinking about the weight problem too on my own. You also see in the movies when two sabers collide they bounce off each other and the user uses that momentum for their next swing. take a look at fencing instead, where the sword is balanced on the handle as well as the blade and they always keep it out in front of them instead of swinging them around

The safety fedature when extending could be constructed with modern technology. All you had to do was motion tracking and chip that could figure what direction the extending bit would be pointing. If the handle would have sensors to detect the carriers body (the jedi cloak), you could program the thing to disengage when it's pointing to such an angle that it would hit the carrier. Some of that would be doable with wii-controller.

forget the lightsaber. imagine armor made out of this type of technology. all you'd have to do is walk through your opponents (and the walls they try to hide behind).

As I understand it, from an energy perspective the blade is continually recycled energy so long as it's active and not interacting with anything solid, like an object. It just loops the same energy over and over again, basically allowing a lightsaber to remain active effectively indefinitely. Once the blade bites into something else, however, it begins expending energy to renew the power of the blade. The resistance the lightaber has against cutting through the other object also provides a sense of weight to the lightsaber, which is why, in Phantom Menace for example, Qui-Gon has to push pretty obviously against the hilt of the blade to get it to continue cutting through the Trade Federation blast door. For some of the other points you raised: yes, you run the risk of the blade itself cutting into you (like it showed in TFA in the Kylo Ren/Finn fight), but you also have the ability to do that to your opponent. And really, and significant force applied against your blade pushing it back towards your body while wearing robes like a Jedi's could cut and wound you- a lightsaber just does that much more effectively. Also, one of the cooler things that the Expanded Universe (sorry... Legends) material gave us was some really cool uses of the Force. One of the cinematic's for Star Wars: The Old Republic, the MMO, showed Satale Shan (Grand Master of the Jedi Order about 3500 years before the OT) using the Force to block a lightsaber blade WITH HER BARE HANDS, saving herself from being impaled on her enemies lightsaber. With the ability to do that, half-swording would be fairly easy to utilise, I think. Additionally, lightsabers aren't the only way a Jedi can block or dodge something. Thinking like that severely limits a Jedi's choices in combat. For example, they could simply dodge out of the way of a lead bullet, especially since there is quite a notable aesthetic difference between practical firearms (or slugthrowers, as they're called in Star Wars- yes, they do have them) and blasters, enough to recognise what they're facing if it's brought to bare, even if they are rather rare weapons. Finally, I'm just going to point something out. Jedi call them lightsabers. Uneducated people like Anakin, who were born in the Outer Rim and thus aren't fully informed about everything, call it a laser sword, yet Qui-Gon doesn't correct him on the actual term. I'm pretty sure 'lightsaber' isn't meant to be taken literally- just like it isn't a saber (more akin in form, design and the OT fighting style to a katana and samurai fighting techniques, really), it isn't made of light. I don't really see how this conclusion is difficult for people to come to, but oh well. Good video overall.

Hey Skallagrim! Just wanted to quickly bring something up here. Both you an Metatron mentioned how lightsaber blades are massless; however, there's a scene in Revenge of the Sith when General Grievous ignites his lightsabers and his arms clearly drop, indicating the blades do seem to have some sort of mass. If I'm not mistaken (which I very well may be) in the Star Wars canon they also resist movement, and feel a bit like moving a stick through fluid.

It should also be noted that the "laser blasts" in Star Wars are slow enough that you can see their travel path and dodge them. That's not the case with lead bullets, though. So even if a Jedi's reflexes allow him to dodge or deflect "laser blasts", that may not be enough to help against dodging or deflecting bullets. Plus the whole molten lead thing you said. (And yes, the whole "Jedi's intuition" and being able to "feel" the immediate future.)