darth_ender said:
Sometimes we all make me laugh because we argue about the correctness of such nerdy stuff. Yes, I'm party to this silliness. But I did want to chime in. I agree, I very much prefer the pre-PT explanation (from EU sources) that Jedi masters had advanced so far in the Force that they no longer needed lightsabers. Moreover, if lightsabers had to be used in the PT by masters, they didn't have to be overused by them as they currently are. And lightsabers, which seemed so precious in the OT, are like cheap, replaceable water pistols in the PT. But I think Bizarro makes a good case that the OT does not actually preclude Jedi masters using lightsabers. It's pretty clear that Yoda and the Emperor do not consider lightsaber usage as beneath the Jedi. The Jedi masters obviously expected the knights to use such methods as part of their growth. When Yoda told Luke that he must face Vader again, I don't think he expected him to defeat him without one. I believe that Luke's test at the cave was a message about giving in to anger, listening to fear, and relying on violence to solve all problems. It did not mean that he would never have to resort to violence. Bizarro said it right: there is more to being a Jedi than fighting, lightsabers, and heroics...but that does not leave those things completely out of the picture.
I'll agree that the lightsabers had lost that special quality in the prequels because of their abundance. But then again, this is suppose to be the era before the Jedi had become extinct so there would naturally be a lot of characters who had them. I do think it would have help though if there had been a few more none Jedi main characters in the story to help balance the action out. Jedi effortlessly blocking blaster fire and slashing everything in sight is no where near as exciting as a good old corridor shoot out. Maybe if Anakin had been allowed to progress in a similar manner to to Luke, he could have used a blaster for part of the movie still before fully embracing the lightsaber in Episode III.