To be fair to the actors, or at least Mark Hamill, I know in ESB he was told by Lucas to think of his lightsaber as Excalibur, so something that needed both hands to wield. And Vader used one hand for most of that fight to make him look stronger and more menacing.
What is also fun is I have watched sword experts go over the stances used in the Jedi: Survivor video game and note that the game designers must have consulted with some experts because the stances are definitely based on classic styles of sword fighting.
So today I finally got around to finishing Guardians 3. Bit of a rollercoaster though - from slightly bored, to warmly pleased, to guttered and then to mostly satisfied. I did like it but gosh the range of feelings I felt towards it while watching was mad!
My wife and I have started watching Lucky Hank, Bob Odenkirkās follow up to Better Call Saul. Itās not as good at that one (Iām willing to say about 4 episodes in) but its vastly different in tone while still being a bit of a dark comedy. My goodness, the depiction of university life rings so true though - I recognise students from my classes and professors from my English facultyā¦ The fact that the book itās based on is from a legit English prof is deeply evident from this adaptation. Top marks for verisimilitude at least!
And of course continuing to wait on new episodes of ST: Lower Decks each week. Itās been a real hilight so far. It might be my favourite Trek ever - itās certainly getting there.
Oh and rewatching Fraiser here and there - such a great show! I donāt have a lot of hope about the new series, particularly since itās sans David Hyde Pierce, who was always one of the biggest draws for me. But who knows, it might surprise me.
No. Lucas was making a spaghetti western in space. There was no grand vision beyond āmake another THX 1138ā. Pretending otherwise is just that, pretend.
No!
Itās pretty simple - there was a fun film for kids, then there was a slightly less fun film for slightly older kids. They were both good in their uncomplicated way, and hugely successful.
Having finished watching season one and two of For All Mankind, weāre back to watching Uncanny Encounter on Netflix.
For all Mankind had some great moments, it also had far too much soap drama too. Well, perhaps not too much, but it annoyed both of us when the sleep with X got in the way of the bigger story.
Season two ending they pulled off an ending that was both brutal and uplifting.
Uncanny Encounter is a Korean show that is not deep, but a lot of fun about ācountersā battling evil spirits. Counters are humans linked to the Korean version of angels, and the evil spirits possess people who have a predilection for violence.
Saw The Creator yesterday. A beautifully designed, shot and well acted film with plot holes you could comfortably drive their ridiculously oversized tank through. If only Gareth Edwards had spent as much time on the story as he clearly had on design it could have been a great film.
I started trying to watch everything a while back. I hit the first missing episode and decided to skip ahead to Tom Baker. Iāve watched everything from there onwards.
Iāve since gone back and picked up the first Doctor again. Iāve made it to halfway through series 2 and stalled again. Thereās just so many episodes and itās so slow compared to what Iām used to.
I watched both the original (1992) and the new (2021) Candyman as Halloween viewing.
The original is simply an excellent horror film. I donāt think itās flawless, but it stands head, shoulders, and torso above most of the films it would generally be lumped in with, and it works as well today as it did 30 years ago.
I never saw its two contemporary sequels (my understanding is that C2 is not good and C3 is awful, and I imagine both were little more than attempts to make more money off the reputation of the first film); but Iād had high hopes for the 2021 film, and I found it disappointing. There was quite a lot to like, but also a lot of choices that I found baffling and which I thought worked against it. I think there was a better film lurking in the ideas behind this. Iāll likely watch it again sometime and see if more things gel for me, but for now I feel thereās still only one essential film in this series.
Nice to see a video of my friend Esther and previous fencing master Nick on this site! I used to train with them back in the UK.
Regarding the use of lightsabers, I understand you are using the smallsword video as an image of what a very light weapon would look like, but you must remember smallsword were mostly blunt on the edges, and if sharpened at all, they would have been very poor cutters.
Lightsabers on the other hand are supposed to be amazing cutters. So that would have changed a lot the technique. I am also more inclined to think of them as a cut and thrust weapon, and considering we have no real feel of how heavy they would be or how would they balance in the hand, it is tricky to play out without that.
And the final consideration is the elephant in the room: hand protection. That video shows the use of smallswords where the weapon includes hand protection, hence you can keep your hand forward relatively confidently, and smallsword techniques come from rapier techniques, with heavy protection of the leading hand. Lightsabers have zero hand protection until Kylo Ren crossguard appeared in the latest trilogy, so I would be more likely to consider that this will make their use more similar to a japanese kendo/kenjutsu style, where thrusting the weapon forward would be done more conservatively. Similar exposure on European weapons was only for use along a shield, and I cannot see how that would be translated to a Star Wars universe.
