It”s the quarter-second that sundered the Star Wars fandom. When the hooded figure in the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” trailer ignited his lightsaber, everyone has ecstatic…until the crossguard popped out. Then the gloves were off and the race to prove or disprove the viability of such a design was on.
Apparently this infighting is not unique to the fan base. During production of “Episode VII,” Abrams ran into the some resistance on his team. Abrams spoke to Collider at the Visual Effect Society Awards and the subject came up.
“It was a number of conversations [that led to the design]. It was a sketch that became a whole thing and, you know, this was not done without a lot of conversation and it”s fun to see people have the conversation that we had, but in reverse.”
Wait, what? What does that last part mean? For months, the likes of Stephen Colbert have been patiently explaining why and how the crossguard works. If Abrams was having the reverse dilemma, does that mean the team came up with the new lightsaber technology first and then had to figure out the best sword design to showcase it? Does it have something to do with the non-uniform nature of the plasma that”s making lighting arc over the new blade type?
Or does it just mean instead of thinking “This is dumb, let me figure out how this is a bad idea,” someone imagined a Sith swinging a giant broadsword and thought “This is awesome, how do we make this happen?”
EXPLAIN YOURSELF, ABRAMS! (spoiler: he won”t.)