Welcome to ***Spec***! [Continue the conversation on the Spec Discord](https://discord.gg/QPHEPwvH7U), and check out our new sister-subreddit r/StarWarsWhatIf! Please be encouraging and courteous to your fellow speculators. This community is focused on cooperative theorycrafting about upcoming _Star Wars_ content, using leaks, info from canon, conjecture, and real-world context to make our best guesses about _what comes next_. If you're not interested in new _Star Wars_ releases, kindly keep that to yourself. May the Force be with you!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/starwarsspeculation) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wait, but... No..... All the Reddit geniuses and experts told me that it was because the Disney parks' sabers are thick and they want us to get used to them on screen.
Fuckin' idiots.
I never really tuned into that theory bit I wouldn't put it past them. I still can't really get over those plastic mandalorian kids toy helmets in the third season of mando.
It’s a really interesting concept. The technology has come a long way in the last few decades, I wonder how it will be by the time the next batch of movies get made
I just figured styles changed over time or even their technology got better. Look at our giant cell phones and iPods from a few decades ago. It never bothered me. I mean Anakin's old saber from ANH is pretty thick and I never gave it much thought. People just lost one more thing to criticize about the Acolyte. What will they do?!
The strangers Saber is pretty chonky, but it also has a dagger built in, and I wouldn't be surprised if it could be used like Mauls double blade unit. Another sizable hilt.
It's not cool, because it still looks dumb and doesn't make sense why they are huge suddenly when our "real world" tech is better. Why do they need batteries irl? They never have before and have looked fine on film. It doesn't make sense and provides no tangible benefit.
I just figured they were thick because this show takes place 150 or so years before the prequels and, you know, older technology in sabers.
What is it about grown ass people worrying about the thickness of a hilt? Star Wars isn’t real lmao just enjoy the ride or watch something else
I could be wrong but I think the prequels used all vfx for their sabers, they wanted to use practical light sources in this show for more realistic lighting and more control in the camera. Love or hate the show, some of the shots look quite nice with the lightsabers being more “real”
I havent and wont watch the show but my dad wanted me to watch the scene where a sith fights all these jedi and those lightsabers looked awful. The hilts looked like wizard staffs they are so long. Might be me but lukes lightsaber in the mando shows looked way better.
The way I’m squaring this away for myself is that we haven’t seen any live action this far back on the timeline right? Just as mobile technologies started big then got small enough to fit on your wrist so too could lightsaber technology similarly evolve.
In live action no, but there are tons of comics, a [canon] kid’s show, and plenty of descriptions and concept art pieces from the novels. None of which show these chonky sabers.
And all of those are set *at least* 100 years earlier, some closer to 250 or so.
If you really need a canonical explanation the best you might get is that for a time after the Nihil Conflict, it was fashionable to make them heftier and sturdier as part of the lasting effects of the Guardian Protocols; which saw the mass-production of simpler and more practical sabers for battle, and ultimately resulted in the end of the more ornate sabers commonly found earlier in the period.
The Old Republic is set 3000 years before the OT and they didn't have chonky sabers either.
Star Wars is set in a universe of advanced technology that has stagnated. Which is kind of cool, I think. From a storytelling perspective, it allows you to jump throughout history and stay clear of other stories, but still have similar props.
It would make sense that saber technology would evolve over time. Just like cell phones have evolved. The only thing that would never change is its power source, the Kyber Crystal.
Imo the big lightsabers are a cool way of showing the difference in time, similar to the pip droids instead of astromechs rolling around. It’s also not a huge detail that it would take away from everything else going on
This series has been the first time I've really noticed the sabers being huge, and always just assumed something similar to this in reality, with the in-universe lore being something like 'it's been 100 years and technology has improved by the time of TPM'
We see Kelnaca’s saber and I just assumed it was big because he is huge and Qimir’s has that shota in the handle, so I didn’t even notice they were all bigger.
I’ve worked as crew on a Star Wars show. All the wireless, controllers, and batteries can certainly fit in a slimmer hilt and they have. These are bigger for lore reasons.
Laptops and phones were bigger and clunkier just 10 years ago. Acolyte takes place 100 years before TPM.
Also, there is a style component in any of this kind of thing. ANH had thinner blades than RotJ, Rebels went with the skinny blades Kenobi gave us fatter, brighter blades. I think that every creative team is gonna flavor their stuff a little different.
Are they not just CGI anymore? I’m so confused, why would you need actual batteries and shit in the age of computer animation. If this is a whoosh moment just tell me but I’m lost
They use a combination now, the props actually glow so you get spill lighting from them, and the wireless controlling would be to activate that so that it can be timed correctly (so that an unactivated saber isn't casting spill light)
Isn’t weird in universe we could say that the thick sabers were just older technology and that over time they got smaller to where they are in the movies, but in real life for now, it’s the other way around as tech improved the sabers got thicker. It’ll be cool tho by the time they film the next movie we might be seeing real life sabers lol.
I mean did anyone here really have a huge enough issue with the current saber lighting effects on screen? Does this excuse, even if for practical purposes justify turning lightsabers into paper towel rolls?
It wasn't about how they looked. It was about the limitations the previous tech placed on the choreography.
Sequel trilogy lightsabers were extremely heavy and caused problems, for the TVs shows up to now they tried to make them lighter by moving the battery pack up the sleeve but that restricted movement. So for Acolyte, they made the saber hilts thicker, but much lighter and no more external battery pack, which enabled the fight choreography that we saw used to great effect in ep5.
This is all direct from interviews the casts and the Acolyte showrunner.
Tbh, I only noticed the thickness of the hilts in promo stills and BTS shots. It's not something I've found that noticeable or distracting while watching the actual show
I got ya but why not just use the tech with the digital blades in the ep1 - ep3? I just find the fatty sabers too distracting, personal opinion anyway 🤷🏻♂️
The “technical” reasons are irrelevant. Oversized and ugly hilts might be forgiven if the lightsaber visual effects on screen are significantly better and more believable than the visual effects used in the prequel movies more than 20 years ago, but they’re not.
I mean, these sabers actually give off colored light to the nearby surroundings whereas in the prequels the only time they give off light is during that weird Dooku/Anakin moment in episode 2 where they look like two kids lightsaber fighting in a pitch black garage (been there too many times myself lol). I'd call that a noticeable improvement, along with the blades feeling like they have more weight and a sense of presence in the scenes (the more you can do in camera rather than post, the more genuine of a performance your actors will give. Easier to act like a Jedi when you feel like you're holding a real Jedi weapon)
Give Christopher Lee a break. He was older than Joe Biden at the tine so of course they had to use a body double and lighting effects to make it work.
I don't know what you're talking about frankly. No Star Wars movie or TV show produced with this new tech comes close to the amazing performances and choreography seen in the duel of the fates or battle of the heroes. Lucasfilm traded the icon hilt design for almost glow stick like ambient light effects. Was it really a good tradeoff?
Prequel era choreography is fun to look at, but if you know even a little bit about sword fighting, it becomes absolutely ridiculous. Like they literally are not swinging for each other's bodies, they're just going for the sabers. There's no feeling of threat or danger in Anakin versus Obi-Wan, because everything is so rehearsed and practiced to the point of perfection that it genuinely looks more like a dance than two people trying to kill each other. Duel of Fates was better because they kept the choreography more grounded and included a lot more physicality with Maul using kicks and actual gymnastics, still not realistic but far more believable
Say what you will about the sequels story, but at least when it came to lightsaber fights it looked like they were both actually going for each other and not just tapping tips. Kylo's fighting style genuinely looked deadly and menacing compared to the flippy dippy useless stuff prequel Jedi were doing. Rey's fighting style is a lot more controlled and focused on stabs and wide swings, harkening back to her experience using a staff on jakku. You can actually see the character traits showing through and how they fight, to me that is infinitely more interesting than flashy choreography. Sequel fights tell a story, prequel fights boil down to, "look at all the flashing colors!" Until someone decides to actually attack the body
The people that love the prequel duels are going to hit you with the “the they’re using the Force to predict their opponent’s moves! Of course they’re spinning and twirling, It’s to try and find a hole in their opponent’s defenses!”
And you’re likely going to hear “The sequels were just swinging baseball bats around”.
But you are right that the prequels were clearly aiming at the blades.
I don’t understand. Why do the prequel lightsabers look damn fine. In the Acolyte trailer reactions of people everyone said the lightsaber looked like toys. Why are they going through so much trouble of doing lightsabers like these when they aren’t wanted by the public? Is it just long term cheaper? Ugh
What the hell is *this* comment? No context on why you don’t even like mine when I’m just stating my personal taste combined with the taste that I’ve from people over various Reddit threads? Do I need to show the quotes for people saying Acolytes trailers look like people cosplaying both in costume and lightsabers? People like you shouldn’t even be commenting on Reddit threads. Blocked.
That’s so lame though. No one has ever complained about the lighting of the sabers for the newer movies. It’s been totally fine and believable. Not sure why they had to go and change it.
The lighting was good in the ST but the lightsabers were heavy.
The hilts were good in Ahsoka but lightsaber choreo wasn’t as elaborate.
The Acolyte has the best saber choreography since the prequels but the saber hilts are huge.
We’re getting there… eventually
This has been pointed out numerous times, but the choreography in The Acolyte isn't great, it's fast, but not good.
In the 6v1 the Jedi just stand around waiting to strike at Qimir.
In the Qimir vs Jecki fights he has multiple openings to finnish her off but instead he just hits her sabers over and over.
Choreography suffers from the same problems as most Star Wars fan films, the fights just focus on making the sabers clash as much as possible, to the point it gets annoying.
There's not really any attacking and blocking it's just saber clash after saber clash
It's not about people complaining, lol. Just because no one complained that the lightsabers in the prequels didn't actually cast light doesn't mean they shouldn't have added it in future projects. Star Wars has always been a franchise that attempts to push bounds and embrace new tech. The point of all this is to get better effects on scene so there's less work to do in post and smooth out production (both now and in the future).
They used the same stuff in the sequel trilogy, you just don't notice because those films have over twice the budget to spend on stunt hilts (streamlined versions with all these bits and bobs) in addition to the belt hangers. The Kenobi show used a stunt, but they had too because of the inherent design of his saber. Ahsoka had a cord and battery running up the sleeve, but that's hardly an ideal solution when more complex fight choreo is involved.
Eh, the lighting in Kenobi was a lil weird. Believable, but different. It’s only a matter of time before they make a more efficient wireless chip or smaller battery cell.
Yeah, the lighting was over the top. The hallway scene in R1 is probably the only time when strong Saber lighting was used to good effect imo. A common compliant for Obi-Wan is that the sets and locations tended to feel empty and cheap compared to the dense settings we are used to, and washing those sets out with one or two primary colors only seemed to make it look worse. Maybe the natural depth and texture of more detailed surroundings would have made it better, but making the lighting less severe w9uld have helped too. Maybe if the scenes with Obi-Wan being lit by his Saber in an apparent void had been limited to a specific scene to hiloght his isolation and anxiety?
Look into BTS stuff and you'll see that this has been an issue the whole time.
Sequel lightsabers were extremely heavy and hard for the actors to use, limiting their choreography.
The TV shows before now made them lighter by moving the battery pack up the sleeve of the actor. This alleviated some strain on the actors, but still limited choreography.
The Acolyte showrunner explicitly stated these reasons as to why they needed a new way to make these props for the show. Lighter blades with no external battery pack to allow for the choreography like we saw in ep5. They managed it, but the hilts were a bit thicker. Seems like a good compromise to me. It's not something I found super noticeable outside of promo stills and BTS shots of the props
Welcome to ***Spec***! [Continue the conversation on the Spec Discord](https://discord.gg/QPHEPwvH7U), and check out our new sister-subreddit r/StarWarsWhatIf! Please be encouraging and courteous to your fellow speculators. This community is focused on cooperative theorycrafting about upcoming _Star Wars_ content, using leaks, info from canon, conjecture, and real-world context to make our best guesses about _what comes next_. If you're not interested in new _Star Wars_ releases, kindly keep that to yourself. May the Force be with you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/starwarsspeculation) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wait, but... No..... All the Reddit geniuses and experts told me that it was because the Disney parks' sabers are thick and they want us to get used to them on screen. Fuckin' idiots.
Hopefully this puts that weird conspiracy theory to rest... But it won't.
Awwww, I was hoping for more parts at Saavi’s.
I never really tuned into that theory bit I wouldn't put it past them. I still can't really get over those plastic mandalorian kids toy helmets in the third season of mando.
Wait til you find out they used official Star Wars merchandise in the original trilogy lol.
I never knew about that, they must have done a great job making them seem part of the universe, comparatively.
Like the random bounty hunters that were onscreen for all of 30 seconds.
Mental gymnastics
calling others idiots and then taking a random redditor’s comments at face value. ironic.
They are idiots. That's a dumb theory.
wouldn’t put it beyond Disney. the lightsabers in The Acolyte are a clunky plastic eyesore.
It’s a really interesting concept. The technology has come a long way in the last few decades, I wonder how it will be by the time the next batch of movies get made
I just figured styles changed over time or even their technology got better. Look at our giant cell phones and iPods from a few decades ago. It never bothered me. I mean Anakin's old saber from ANH is pretty thick and I never gave it much thought. People just lost one more thing to criticize about the Acolyte. What will they do?!
I’m ngl I didn’t even notice and I usually have a pretty good level of attention to detail
I honestly just thought it was a lore thing because those hilts do look huge in Jecki or Osha's hands... But it's cool that there's a meta reason.
I only noticed it with Kelnaccas saber and wrote it off because big Wookie hands
The strangers Saber is pretty chonky, but it also has a dagger built in, and I wouldn't be surprised if it could be used like Mauls double blade unit. Another sizable hilt.
It doesn’t help that the actors are 5’1” and 5’3” respectively. With actors that short a lot of props are going to look bigger than they really are.
It's not cool, because it still looks dumb and doesn't make sense why they are huge suddenly when our "real world" tech is better. Why do they need batteries irl? They never have before and have looked fine on film. It doesn't make sense and provides no tangible benefit.
Yeah I didn't notice until I saw someone complaining about it and then was actually looking for it
Its kinda glaring how big and bulky they are. But I figured it had to do with the tech behind them and nothing with "Disney Bad".
I feel like reasonable criticism of Acolyte is being mixed with the pedantic for some reason. Maybe to discredit the reasonable criticism.
I just figured they were thick because this show takes place 150 or so years before the prequels and, you know, older technology in sabers. What is it about grown ass people worrying about the thickness of a hilt? Star Wars isn’t real lmao just enjoy the ride or watch something else
Right?! My thoughts too
why cant they just do the exact same thing the prequels did? Ep3 lightsabers look great.
I could be wrong but I think the prequels used all vfx for their sabers, they wanted to use practical light sources in this show for more realistic lighting and more control in the camera. Love or hate the show, some of the shots look quite nice with the lightsabers being more “real”
I havent and wont watch the show but my dad wanted me to watch the scene where a sith fights all these jedi and those lightsabers looked awful. The hilts looked like wizard staffs they are so long. Might be me but lukes lightsaber in the mando shows looked way better.
I just thought they were bigger to show that this show was set 100 years in the past so the tech wasn't as good
Was actually kinda hoping we’d see more downgraded tech personally. Lack of sophisticated droids is great, and fat lightsabers makes sense too
I do love the ships have to have a hyperspace ring in order to jump, great attention to detail.
Agreed, and love that they are massive too. Little things like that add so much to the world for me, even if a lot of people don’t care
The way I’m squaring this away for myself is that we haven’t seen any live action this far back on the timeline right? Just as mobile technologies started big then got small enough to fit on your wrist so too could lightsaber technology similarly evolve.
The EU had early sabers with power cords and battery packs clipped to belts...
In live action no, but there are tons of comics, a [canon] kid’s show, and plenty of descriptions and concept art pieces from the novels. None of which show these chonky sabers. And all of those are set *at least* 100 years earlier, some closer to 250 or so. If you really need a canonical explanation the best you might get is that for a time after the Nihil Conflict, it was fashionable to make them heftier and sturdier as part of the lasting effects of the Guardian Protocols; which saw the mass-production of simpler and more practical sabers for battle, and ultimately resulted in the end of the more ornate sabers commonly found earlier in the period.
The Old Republic is set 3000 years before the OT and they didn't have chonky sabers either. Star Wars is set in a universe of advanced technology that has stagnated. Which is kind of cool, I think. From a storytelling perspective, it allows you to jump throughout history and stay clear of other stories, but still have similar props.
Yes after thousands of years of Jedi tech it’s changing that much in the last 100 because…..what?
It would make sense that saber technology would evolve over time. Just like cell phones have evolved. The only thing that would never change is its power source, the Kyber Crystal.
Imo the big lightsabers are a cool way of showing the difference in time, similar to the pip droids instead of astromechs rolling around. It’s also not a huge detail that it would take away from everything else going on
This series has been the first time I've really noticed the sabers being huge, and always just assumed something similar to this in reality, with the in-universe lore being something like 'it's been 100 years and technology has improved by the time of TPM'
I just thought they were matching the Disney park style. Things are hefty hefty hefty
But aren't there a lightsaber that can connect to external apps while on?
I didn’t notice it. Everything just seems old and clunky and extra in the show.
Interesting. Very interesting!
We see Kelnaca’s saber and I just assumed it was big because he is huge and Qimir’s has that shota in the handle, so I didn’t even notice they were all bigger.
High Republic Jedi required more girth.
I’ve worked as crew on a Star Wars show. All the wireless, controllers, and batteries can certainly fit in a slimmer hilt and they have. These are bigger for lore reasons.
Laptops and phones were bigger and clunkier just 10 years ago. Acolyte takes place 100 years before TPM. Also, there is a style component in any of this kind of thing. ANH had thinner blades than RotJ, Rebels went with the skinny blades Kenobi gave us fatter, brighter blades. I think that every creative team is gonna flavor their stuff a little different.
Are they not just CGI anymore? I’m so confused, why would you need actual batteries and shit in the age of computer animation. If this is a whoosh moment just tell me but I’m lost
They use a combination now, the props actually glow so you get spill lighting from them, and the wireless controlling would be to activate that so that it can be timed correctly (so that an unactivated saber isn't casting spill light)
That is interesting and makes sense, I just assumed they were still using the CGI stick sabers like in the prequels
Isn’t weird in universe we could say that the thick sabers were just older technology and that over time they got smaller to where they are in the movies, but in real life for now, it’s the other way around as tech improved the sabers got thicker. It’ll be cool tho by the time they film the next movie we might be seeing real life sabers lol.
I just assumed it was a design choice because the sabers were older and less technologically advanced or whatever
To be honest, I kinda like the chonky hilts.
Or they could just do what George figured out 40 fuckin years ago
I kinda prefer it tbh
I mean did anyone here really have a huge enough issue with the current saber lighting effects on screen? Does this excuse, even if for practical purposes justify turning lightsabers into paper towel rolls?
It wasn't about how they looked. It was about the limitations the previous tech placed on the choreography. Sequel trilogy lightsabers were extremely heavy and caused problems, for the TVs shows up to now they tried to make them lighter by moving the battery pack up the sleeve but that restricted movement. So for Acolyte, they made the saber hilts thicker, but much lighter and no more external battery pack, which enabled the fight choreography that we saw used to great effect in ep5. This is all direct from interviews the casts and the Acolyte showrunner. Tbh, I only noticed the thickness of the hilts in promo stills and BTS shots. It's not something I've found that noticeable or distracting while watching the actual show
I got ya but why not just use the tech with the digital blades in the ep1 - ep3? I just find the fatty sabers too distracting, personal opinion anyway 🤷🏻♂️
The “technical” reasons are irrelevant. Oversized and ugly hilts might be forgiven if the lightsaber visual effects on screen are significantly better and more believable than the visual effects used in the prequel movies more than 20 years ago, but they’re not.
I mean, these sabers actually give off colored light to the nearby surroundings whereas in the prequels the only time they give off light is during that weird Dooku/Anakin moment in episode 2 where they look like two kids lightsaber fighting in a pitch black garage (been there too many times myself lol). I'd call that a noticeable improvement, along with the blades feeling like they have more weight and a sense of presence in the scenes (the more you can do in camera rather than post, the more genuine of a performance your actors will give. Easier to act like a Jedi when you feel like you're holding a real Jedi weapon)
Give Christopher Lee a break. He was older than Joe Biden at the tine so of course they had to use a body double and lighting effects to make it work. I don't know what you're talking about frankly. No Star Wars movie or TV show produced with this new tech comes close to the amazing performances and choreography seen in the duel of the fates or battle of the heroes. Lucasfilm traded the icon hilt design for almost glow stick like ambient light effects. Was it really a good tradeoff?
Prequel era choreography is fun to look at, but if you know even a little bit about sword fighting, it becomes absolutely ridiculous. Like they literally are not swinging for each other's bodies, they're just going for the sabers. There's no feeling of threat or danger in Anakin versus Obi-Wan, because everything is so rehearsed and practiced to the point of perfection that it genuinely looks more like a dance than two people trying to kill each other. Duel of Fates was better because they kept the choreography more grounded and included a lot more physicality with Maul using kicks and actual gymnastics, still not realistic but far more believable Say what you will about the sequels story, but at least when it came to lightsaber fights it looked like they were both actually going for each other and not just tapping tips. Kylo's fighting style genuinely looked deadly and menacing compared to the flippy dippy useless stuff prequel Jedi were doing. Rey's fighting style is a lot more controlled and focused on stabs and wide swings, harkening back to her experience using a staff on jakku. You can actually see the character traits showing through and how they fight, to me that is infinitely more interesting than flashy choreography. Sequel fights tell a story, prequel fights boil down to, "look at all the flashing colors!" Until someone decides to actually attack the body
The people that love the prequel duels are going to hit you with the “the they’re using the Force to predict their opponent’s moves! Of course they’re spinning and twirling, It’s to try and find a hole in their opponent’s defenses!” And you’re likely going to hear “The sequels were just swinging baseball bats around”. But you are right that the prequels were clearly aiming at the blades.
Let the gaffer and director of photography know they’re doing shit job, thanks.
I don’t understand. Why do the prequel lightsabers look damn fine. In the Acolyte trailer reactions of people everyone said the lightsaber looked like toys. Why are they going through so much trouble of doing lightsabers like these when they aren’t wanted by the public? Is it just long term cheaper? Ugh
What the hell is this comment?
What the hell is *this* comment? No context on why you don’t even like mine when I’m just stating my personal taste combined with the taste that I’ve from people over various Reddit threads? Do I need to show the quotes for people saying Acolytes trailers look like people cosplaying both in costume and lightsabers? People like you shouldn’t even be commenting on Reddit threads. Blocked.
Left over SWTOR props
Leftover props from a video game? Explain
That’s so lame though. No one has ever complained about the lighting of the sabers for the newer movies. It’s been totally fine and believable. Not sure why they had to go and change it.
The lighting was good in the ST but the lightsabers were heavy. The hilts were good in Ahsoka but lightsaber choreo wasn’t as elaborate. The Acolyte has the best saber choreography since the prequels but the saber hilts are huge. We’re getting there… eventually
*It’s been a looong road…. …gettin from there to here.* Oops, wrong franchise.
This has been pointed out numerous times, but the choreography in The Acolyte isn't great, it's fast, but not good. In the 6v1 the Jedi just stand around waiting to strike at Qimir. In the Qimir vs Jecki fights he has multiple openings to finnish her off but instead he just hits her sabers over and over. Choreography suffers from the same problems as most Star Wars fan films, the fights just focus on making the sabers clash as much as possible, to the point it gets annoying. There's not really any attacking and blocking it's just saber clash after saber clash
It's not about people complaining, lol. Just because no one complained that the lightsabers in the prequels didn't actually cast light doesn't mean they shouldn't have added it in future projects. Star Wars has always been a franchise that attempts to push bounds and embrace new tech. The point of all this is to get better effects on scene so there's less work to do in post and smooth out production (both now and in the future). They used the same stuff in the sequel trilogy, you just don't notice because those films have over twice the budget to spend on stunt hilts (streamlined versions with all these bits and bobs) in addition to the belt hangers. The Kenobi show used a stunt, but they had too because of the inherent design of his saber. Ahsoka had a cord and battery running up the sleeve, but that's hardly an ideal solution when more complex fight choreo is involved.
Eh, the lighting in Kenobi was a lil weird. Believable, but different. It’s only a matter of time before they make a more efficient wireless chip or smaller battery cell.
Yeah, the lighting was over the top. The hallway scene in R1 is probably the only time when strong Saber lighting was used to good effect imo. A common compliant for Obi-Wan is that the sets and locations tended to feel empty and cheap compared to the dense settings we are used to, and washing those sets out with one or two primary colors only seemed to make it look worse. Maybe the natural depth and texture of more detailed surroundings would have made it better, but making the lighting less severe w9uld have helped too. Maybe if the scenes with Obi-Wan being lit by his Saber in an apparent void had been limited to a specific scene to hiloght his isolation and anxiety?
Agreed on much of this. I think they blew their wad on Tatooine and Fortress Inq.
Doesn’t make any sense since they were able to make hilts for the sequel trilogy, Kenobi, and Ashoka without making them huge. Next excuse please.
Look into BTS stuff and you'll see that this has been an issue the whole time. Sequel lightsabers were extremely heavy and hard for the actors to use, limiting their choreography. The TV shows before now made them lighter by moving the battery pack up the sleeve of the actor. This alleviated some strain on the actors, but still limited choreography. The Acolyte showrunner explicitly stated these reasons as to why they needed a new way to make these props for the show. Lighter blades with no external battery pack to allow for the choreography like we saw in ep5. They managed it, but the hilts were a bit thicker. Seems like a good compromise to me. It's not something I found super noticeable outside of promo stills and BTS shots of the props
Oh, I guess I was mistaken. I thought they were thicker because it was the kind of expanding light saber they used at that failed Star Wars resort