Usually soldiers are taught how to handle close quarter combats, and all that guy was asking for was a fair fight against the “traitor”.
Well, OK. Yes, I got that that was the “cool moment” Abrams was going for. But it was something absurdly corny that you’d see out of a cheap comic book.
Think of it this way: An American soldier is firing on an ISIS fighter. The ISIS fighter runs out of bullets. So the American throws down his rifle and calls the ISIS fighter out for a fist fight so that the fight can be “fair”?!
And the scene is even made sillier when you think of this: Why would a stormtrooper even be armed with a melee weapon that can CONVENIENTLY deflect lightsaber blades? Before you say, “So they can fight the Jedi!”, the Jedi are extinct (except for Luke). So they pose no threat. Why would your foot soldiers be armed with such an impractical weapon?
This is just yet another case of, “Let’s throw a lot of really ‘cool’ sh!t on the screen!” without any regard for whether or not the “cool” sh!t makes any sense.