Lots of things about lightsabers don't make sense, but we give that a pass because they're cool and Star Wars wouldn't be the same without them. No cool lightsaber duels if one of the duelists just turns off their lightsaber to break a saber lock and all that. However, there are some weird issues with the way lightsabers are used even within the rules of their own universe. For instance...
Saber Skills I: Trained in Your Jedi Arts
In the depths of a Separatist base on some Separatist planet with an identity not relevant to this joke, General Grievous was being trained in the Jedi arts by Count Dooku, so he could better hunt their Jedi enemies. So far, Grievous had put his skills as a warrior to good use, managing to take down enough Jedi to arm himself with at least four lightsabers. Dooku doubted that the cyborg had claimed the lives of any particularly noteworthy knights or masters to get those sabers, but taking down Jedi without special training to combat them was impressive.
Nevertheless, Dooku knew he would have to step up Grievous' training if he was ever going to compete with the most skilled of the Jedi. That was why his red lightsaber was currently clashing with all four of his opponent's green and blue ones as they squared off in a large chamber. Dooku, being a master duelist, was having little trouble keeping Grievous at bay even when he had to deflect four sabers at a time.
Aware that he was one of the best duelists currently alive without the veil of ignorance, Dooku was not disappointed with Grievous. It would be foolish to expect the cyborg warrior to match him at this stage of his training: or ever, considering his lack of the Force. In a fair fight, Grievous stood no chance against him. Still, he did need to impart his wisdom to the Separatist general.
"Do not rely on standard attacks, use the unorthodox!"
Grievous paused in his assault as he considered this advice.
"So, when my opponent's lightsaber is locked against one of my own, I should use my three other lightsabers to attack them from various angles they couldn't possibly defend themselves from all at once. Yes, that makes sense..."
Dooku stepped back, aghast.
"Absolutely not! Such tactics would be..."
Seeing that they were no longer sparring, Grievous turned off his lightsabers.
"Effective? Deadly? The most basic use of intelligence?"
"Nay, uncouth! Discourteous! A shame to swordsmanship!"
"Then what unorthodox attacks should I use?"
Glad that he had gotten that ridiculous idea of out the cyborg's head (wherever it was currently stored in his body), Dooku offered his sage advice.
"Of course, you must always swing all four of your lightsabers along the exact same trajectory. That way, your opponent can block all four of them with their one lightsaber, making for a fair fight."
"But... why bother having four lightsabers at all, then? If I swing all four of them in the same direction, it's basically just one wide lightsaber. That's completely pointless!"
"But it's also fair. Really gives your foes a solid chance of surviving any encounter with you, which is good if they are, er, crucial to the plo- I mean, the machinations of Lord Sidious! O-of course..."
Grievous didn't have a face really, so there was no facial expression to identify. But somehow, his expressionless face plate and steely gaze gave off an air of incredulity.
"So... what can I do?"
"You may spin your lightsabers around like a helicopter, but never while attacking normally with any of your other sabers. And honestly, I'd prefer if you mostly stuck to two sabers for the majority of any duel. No need to use your full arsenal to its most effective ends."
Grievous and Dooku stood silently, gazing at one another as the conversation hit a lull. Dooku seemed content with his teachings. Grievous seemed to be contemplating what to say next.
"...I'm never going to be a credible threat to anyone of any importance from this moment on, am I?"
Dooku chuckled at this, amused by some meta understanding the cyborg was unaware of.
"You and I both, friend. You and I both..."
I don't hate the 2008 Clone Wars, but it does have some huge, glaring problems. Namely, it consistently fails to present its villains as actually threatening. That's what happens when you take your primary antagonists and use them for comedy, jokes, and laughs. By its very nature, a villain you can laugh at is a villain who isn't intimidating. TCW is terrible about this, with dozens of instances of droids, Grievous, and even Dooku being treated like incompetent clowns. I already know the likes of Anakin and Obi-Wan and many other characters are in no real danger because they have to survive for plot, so the least the writers could have done was present a believable illusion of a threat from their antagonists.
Grievous gets dunked on by Gungans. Gungans! And not even a lot of them! He gets taken down by like, eight! 2003 Grievous was peak Grievous.
Anyway, this riff was about saber fights, I guess, so maybe I should focus on that. Simply put, the choreography for fights between a single saber and anyone with two (or four) are always terrible, because the person with several sabers always swings them like they are just one saber, instead of, I don't know, catching the opponent's lightsaber with one of their own and then swinging at the legs? If you are going to make a fight between a single saber user and a multiple saber user, make it obvious that the multiple sabers is a huge threat, instead of making the multiple saber user an idiot. Of course, Star Wars is extremely guilty of this across almost all of its media: the good guys win not because they are skilled, but because the bad guys are just stupidly incompetent. I really hate that type of writing.
Saber Skills II: Use the Force, Dumbass!
Rey and Kylo Ren, two individuals that could have been interesting if only "fate" knew how to write, were dueling on the wreckage of the second Death Star, which had crashed on a moon near Endor. Surrounded by crashing waves and mist, they battled on a narrow strip of metal, whacking their lightsabers together with all of the grace of a landlocked manatee. Jedi and Sith of days gone by, they were not. Then again, they weren't Jedi or Sith of any day, all things considered.
As Rey swung her lightsaber horizontally in an arc even a Miraluka could have seen coming without any connection to the Force whatsoever, Kylo decided to use a bit of that awesome power to freeze Rey's saber in place, stopping her attack cold. With her only means of defending herself unavailable and Kylo's own lightsaber perfectly ready to go, the Supreme Ruler of the First Order realized something.
"Wow, this would be a really good time to easily win this fight. I mean, you have no way of defending yourself at all and you're wide open!"
Rey didn't seem all that bothered by this notion.
"You won't do that. You're trying to take me alive so you can turn me to the Dark Side, remember?"
"I can just cut your outstretched arms off. You'll live, but have no means of resisting me."
Now this notion seemed to scare the next coming of Force Jesus.
"Hold on, a lot of good I would be on the Dark Side without hands!"
Kylo shrugged at the gruesome act being described.
"We live in a time where incredibly advanced prosthetics can be made fairly easily. They can feel, have realistic synthetic skin pulled over them... heck, they're basically just better hands. Greater physical strength, no arthritis, a lot of modifications, and I'm assuming you could turn the pain off if you wanted. I'd be doing you a favor!"
While Rey should have been terrified by the current situation, her expression was more contemplative than anything else.
"You've got a point. You know, it's really odd that this galaxy has such a lack of cyborgs considering the vast array of improvements our society is clearly capable of making to biological bodies via technology."
Kylo nodded his head in agreement, then swiftly chopped off Rey's hands at the wrists, since she had no means of defending herself. Ignoring her screams of agony, the dark warrior sheathed his lightsaber and collected hers.
"Yeah, it really is."
Isn't it though? I'm not saying cybernetics have no weaknesses, but they clearly have some great strengths: it's odd that a society capable of cybernetic modification has very, very little to speak of. But that's neither here nor there.
Back to sabers though, it annoys me when a Jedi or Sith just catches a lightsaber with the Force, because it always creates an opening they just ignore. Now, I know why this is. If Force users can just stop lightsabers in motion with their wizard powers, actual saber duels become obsolete. You don't need to do all of this swordsmanship nonsense if you can stop the enemy mid-attack and cut them in half. It's also a problem with this new Force freeze stuff in the sequels: if you can use the Force to completely freeze an opponent, lightsaber battles are pointless. Every battle between Force users should just be a who can freeze who first face-off.
The Force in general makes lightsaber duels kind of iffy in regards to whether or not they should even happen, but obviously we want lightsaber duels because they are awesome. That said, writers should be very careful about lamp-shading how unnecessary such duels are with certain fight choreography or the creation of new Force powers. Don't make a duel seem like an unnecessary pleasantry in your own movie, damn!
Saber Skills III: Truly Wondrous, The Mind of a Child Is
Grand Master Yoda of the Jedi Order was teaching younglings at the Jedi temple today, a task that seemed very strange considering his position in the Order. Didn't he have anything better to be doing? Not that training the next generation of Jedi was unimportant, but was there no crisis that needed his attention? No sage wisdom to impart? At the very least, someone with his level of experience should have been teaching other knights or masters, not the literal lowest echelon of the Order, a group so inexperienced that a Padawan could have done the task.
Not very efficient, the Jedi were.
Either way, he was hobbling around one of the training chambers, basking in the light that came in through the windows as he detailed the art of lightsaber combat to extremely young Jedi in training. The hustle and bustle of Coruscant was absent from this place, giving way to a peaceful quiet that was excellent for teaching.
Admittedly, saber on saber combat was rare for Jedi these days: there had been no saber wielding enemies to contend with in a long time. But considering the mysterious Sith warrior Obi-Wan Kenobi had defeated back on Naboo some years ago, it was possible for that to change. Besides, a wider breadth of knowledge never hurt anyone.
Yoda was in the middle of a lesson regarding saber locks, when one of the younglings, a small blonde child with a face that may have agitated a theoretical fallen Jedi purging the Temple, raised his hand. Naturally, Yoda interrupted his monologue to address the small boy.
"Yes, young one? A question have you?"
"Master Yoda, if the lightsabers are pushing against one another, why don't you just turn your lightsaber off? Then the other guy falls forward, and you can turn it back on real quick and get him!"
Seeing the wisdom in this, most of the other younglings began nodding and voicing their agreement. Naturally, Yoda had to dispel this harebrained notion right away.
"No, no: do this, you cannot."
The children seemed confused by this.
"Why not? Can a lightsaber not turn off when touching another one?"
"No, young one. Simply rude, it is. Also, a cool fight, it does not make."
Falling silent, the younglings all looked at one another in confusion, before simply shrugging and accepting the explanation at face value. They did like the thought of being cool, after all.
Yeah, yeah, I know: fans have asked this "why not just deactivate the lightsaber" question for years. Meta explanation? It would ruin the flow of a saber duel and not be very cool. Imagine a sword fight, but the duelists can make their sword tangible and intangible at will. The whole fight basically just becomes two guys trying to phase their swords through each other so they can make them tangible again and hit the opponent. Not very cinematic.
Is there an in-universe explanation though? Can lightsabers indeed not be turned off when the beam touches another saber beam? Don't cross the streams and all that? Or do duelists just not do it because it would be a little risky if they messed it up? But hey, if they did mess up, they could just catch the enemy lightsaber with the Force! And you know, they can also deflect blasters with the Force... why does anyone even need lightsabers? Just to cut holes in things?
