You can't do that with a lightsaber, dude

When I was a youngster I had one of those incredibly geeky arguments that people of my ilk are prone to do with my friend Geoff. You know, one of those “Who would win? A Star Destroyer or the Enterprise-D?” type of arguments. To this day, Geoff still thinks he’s right, even though he’s clearly not.

Here it is: In the Star Wars films, Jedi Knights have telekinetic powers, right? They move shit with their minds. If my friend Geoff were a Jedi, during a lightsaber duel with a Sith Lord or something he would use his mental powers to turn off his opponent’s lightsaber. The bad guy would move to parry one of Geoff’s blows, and all of a sudden his lightsaber blade would just turn off, allowing Geoff to chop the bad guy’s head off.

“That’s bullshit,” Young Dave said, eating some Cheetos.

“How is that bullshit?” Geoff asked. “You just turn on a lightsaber with a button. How hard would it be to use your Jedi powers to turn a button off?”

“I’m not saying a Jedi wouldn’t be able to hit a button in an elevator with his mind, but I don’t think it would work in a combat situation…”

“Why not?” Geoff said. “Because the button is moving around on a lightsaber? That’s stupid, you’d have to be a pretty lame Jedi not to be able to do that.”

“Well, but the lightsaber is being held by another Jedi, or Force Practicioner or whatever. I think they’d be able to detect what you were doing and do some sort of Force counter-measure,” Young Dave said.

“Now who’s talking bullshit?” Geoff said, grabbing some of my Cheetos. “The Sith Lord would put up some sort of telepathic trigger lock on his lightsaber? That’s dumb; it’d be over before he could even react. I’d turn off his lightsaber and chop his fucking head off.”

“Then why haven’t they done that in the movies if it’s such a good idea?” I asked, cracking open a Dr. Pepper.

“They just haven’t thought of it,” said Geoff.

“No, they haven’t done it because it’s stupid, and nobody wants to see Darth Vader go out like that.”

“I do.”

“Well, you’re dumb.”

“No, you’re dumb,” Geoff said.

“Whatever,” I said. “Hand me the Skull Bong.”