…stay for the sight of people arguing whether non-Force Sensitive people can or cannot activate a lightsaber in the first place. Which they can, of course. It’s just that you need to be one of Star Wars’ genetic aristocrats to activate and use one without carving chunks of your own body off*.
There. That should amuse my readership for the rest of the night.
Moe Lane
*While we’re on the subject: they had clones. They had prosthetic limbs that were more or less functional replacements, including pain sensors. Why didn’t they just grow Luke a new hand. Or, heck, Anakin a new body?
My amusement begins and ends with adding this to the “Ivo Shandor Was Right” list.
The technological development of SW galactic civilization is remarkable for its millennia of stagnation. I’m curious how they should have sapient AI without touching off The Singularity.
I think that there’s a bright line between Sapient AI and True AI.
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I am sure that you will be able to make a AI system that is aware, but box them in and limit them. C-3PO and R2-D2 are aware and can learn, within their base program and will never be more than what they are.
They also apparently mind-wipe their AIs (droids) a lot.
How often do people clear their browser history? That’s how often droids will get wiped.
People who argue that Han Solo can’t activate a lightsaber need to watch The Empire Strikes Back again.
Back before the prequel trilogy was released, someone mentioned to me that Lucas himself had apparently stated that only force users could turn on a lightsaber. This was a retcon, though, since West End Games (who were pretty much the unsung heroes for turning Star Wars into an internally consistant setting) had included a lengthy quote from source material on lightsabers in one of their books stating that anyone could turn them on.
Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lucas really did go back and arbitrarily decide that only force users could activate a lightsaber. That sounds like something stupid that he’d do.
Oh, and the explanation for Han in TESB was apparently that he had some very minor force ability that he only used on an unconscious level.
Fear the Jedi and their esoteric button pushing ability!
The original movies clearly show how the light saber is turned on and off. It’s with the simple push of a button.
It took force attunement to build a light saber, but anyone could use one.
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It does sound like the type of pointless change George Lucas kept trying to make in the prequels. (The Force as a STD, anyone?)
Fortunately, the stories that such movies actually exist is only a horrible internet rumor.
There’s a debate .. which was worse, that Shaazam movie Sinbad starred in back in the ’90s, or the Star Wars prequels George allegedly wrote?
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Mew
It’s a matter of expectations.
“Starring Sinbad” might as well be written “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”.
At the time of the mythically bad Phantom Menace, the name George Lucas didn’t evoke the same sort of dread.