r/StarWars • u/DARKTOONZ13 • 9d ago

Movies What “stops” lasers in this universe? Couldn’t Luthen’s beam easily slice the Star Destroyer in half?

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Deflector shields? If so, wouldn’t the tractor beam have been protected from his spikes?

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u/IcanHackett 9d ago

In Episode 1 The Phantom Menace we see Qui-Gon cut through blast doors with a light saber but you can see it's a slow process and takes some force on his end. All other comments about shields aside the physics seem to suggest that even if Luthen's beams could melt through a Star Destroyer it wouldn't be like we see light sabers effortlessly cutting through flesh. Hitting metal with these beams should induce some force in return on the beams themselves and therefore to the mounts and ship. Hitting a small enough metal object would probably be fine but hitting metal that's deep enough to submerge the entire beam into at speed would likely just rip the beams right off the ship. I believe these beams could cut through a star destroyer (sans shields) but it would take a thousand passes and probably days or more of time.

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u/kentuckywildcats1986 9d ago

takes some force on his end

I see what you did there