Who has the best Designed sabers?

[Scars Unseen]

big and "clunky" is a basic requirement for the style enabling the wielder to maintain a solid grip on the saber.

I always thought that was kind of ridiculous. There is nothing about big and clunky that makes it easier to grip a hilt. Whoever came up with that never used a sword(I haven't either, but I used to practice kendo, which is similar). The OT hilts were made as they were because they looked cool(and could be made cheaply). No more, no less.

That said, I prefer prequel sabers over OT from a strict aesthetic sense. EU is a mixed bag since it covers different eras. From more recent comics, I like the Old Republic sabers, but not so much the twisted turds that the Sith use in Legacy.

[Mobius]

lol I would have to agree considering all the documentation that lists this was written after the movies. the lightsabers were made the way they were because they were found in piles in junk shops because the budget wouldn't allow anything to be custom made.

But hey it sounded good right?

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

Kendo swords, or any swords, aren't lightsabers.

They dont have moving parts inside. They don't have a "gyroscopic effect" that is constantly trying to 'spin' the saber out of the wielder's hands while resisting every attempt to reorient the blade [which is what required the intense life long practice of telekinetic Force users to overcome and why not just anyone could use one effectively]. They don't have to safely contain and channel the enormously powerful energy supply necessary to cut through dense armour plate like butter without risk of detonating with the yield of a small nuclear weapon if they fall considerable distances in floating cities or even get cut in half by droid factories or other lightsabers.

And in the case of Saber Form V Shien/Djem So users like Anakin/Vader/Luke they have to be built strong enough to be able to resist being wielded with Force-enhanced superhuman strength without crumpling in their hands on impact with other sabers resisting blade fields.

Also in Form V there is emphasis on precise counteroffensive redirection of blaster fire [rather than defensive blaster bolt deflection of Form III Soresu] which makes Form V sabers sport angular emitters to 'facet' the blade for directional control and also means any rotational spinning in the hand of the hilt is detrimental to bb-redirection accuracy.

Which is why the Form V sabers are built thick in one piece or with reinforcing shrouds to strengthen them and the uncomfortable T grips that solidly brake them from any spinning in their users hands

Add in that in the OT era lightsabers and their parts were illegal, no one manufactured them and they were thus hard to come by [and any attempt to do so would attract 'imperial entanglements'] and you can see why OT sabers were as they were with Obi having to repair/maintain [not entirely effectively as seen on the Death Star] his and Ani/Lukes sabers with clunky clamps, d-rings and other 'found items'.

[Luke's ROTJ saber is an interesting conumdrum since it is entirely unsuitable to a Form V user but perhaps a clue can be found in that it was fashioned from part found in Obis home on Tatooine...perhaps Obi knew his old lightsaber wasn't quite in best condition as shown in ANH and was in the process of slowly gathering parts for replacing it when Fate intervened...that could also explain the 'recipe' for a GREEN synthetic crystal since that would reflect Obi in his Exile having given up the active role of a Jedi Guardian to adopt the more studious path of a Jedi Consular's intensive Force training that Yoda had assigned him from Qui-Gon. The ROTJ saber certainly LOOKS like something Obi might have been designing for himself as a Soresu user and which Luke, untrained in all the niceties of Old Republic forms might not have known was rather unsuitable for his own style, or perhaps simply had to makle do with the parts available to him that Obi had collected hmmm?]

The Prequel sabers represent more 'open' lightsaber design where Jedi all knew about and understood the Seven Forms and where the order was spectacularly wealthy and powerful and parts to make sabers optimized for each form were plentiful and readily available to every Jedi to pick and choose from for their own purpose. And where the Forms themselves and the sabers for them had reached their highest level of perfection after thousands of years of development, with Form VII Juyo having finally reached its perfection as Vaapad in the very end times of the Old Republic.

The New Jedi Order on the other hand was just rebuilding and never reached the position of the OJO in the prequel era and still suffered from scarcity of lightsaber parts because of the Purge for a long time...its saber designs were often [literally] Unorthodox and/or resulted from Grandmaster Skywalker's creation of the "3 Styles" largely ignorant of the "7 Forms" [though they were slowly partially rediscovered]. Thus its sabers never represented the millenia of form-specific refinement and perfection of the PT sabers.

And the Imperial Knight sabers were 'uniform' and the Legacy era Sith designs 'undisciplined' in comparison to PT OJO 7 Form optimized sabers.

I vote PT.

[Sunrider]

I say PT just because of Mace Windu's saber. Best design, best swordsman. BAMF

[Scars Unseen]

I'm not arguing that what Mobius and Onli-Won say is incorrect in so far as the EU explanations for things go. I'm just saying its a silly explanation. Regardless of the circumstances, a larger diameter is going to be harder to grip, not easier(excepting people with unusually large hands). I could accept that the diameter is larger than a hilt would typically be on a sword due to the existence of internal parts. Indeed, that(and Onli-Won's explanation of the scarcity of parts in the Rebellion Era) would be more than sufficient to explain any ergonomic oddities in lightsaber design. The rest of it just strikes me as overzealous authors going to unnecessary lengths to explain Lucas' prop choices.

Just my opinion.

[Mobius]

Keep in mind that due to his mechanical prosthetics Darth vaders hands were Unusually large and required a larger hilt to begin with. I believe the explanations further said that his hilt was still almost too small for his hands.

[djobitwan7]

I say the Sideous saber has the most unique coloring compared to all of the other sabers combined. Prismatic paint. In the EU I like Leia's saber as well. I like simplicity, but sometimes........things just look good and I love them all for the most part.

[psab keel]

While I like the prequel sabers for their sleek and streamlined designs, I really think the "found parts" look of the OT sabers give them a credibility that no fully machined design could ever replicate.

[FenderBender]

Gyroscopic forces......LOL sheesh!:rolls eyes: If that were the case and it was SOO hard for just anyone to use then it would have killed Han to use Lukes in ESB when he cut open the Tauntaun, and Boba Fett was known to have a collection and even used one on occasion. What a load of tripe.

Not to mention, the fact that GL had NO intentions on creating sabers based on silly things like saber forms. They aren't mentioned ANYWHERE in any of the films. Its fine for the books, but even in all the books I read, saber design has little correlation with whatever form the user has perfected.

In any case, I feel that the PT era or Old Republic Era to be the most aesthetically pleasing design wise.

[Novastar]

I vote that FenderBender (Vader's Vault) and Yoda (FX-Sabers) have the best designed sabers.

But that's just MY retarded opinion. hehhheheheh