Star Wars is science-fantasy, not fiction, so there's no real need for an explanation. It's literal space magic.

But they aren't saying "Okay, Thrawn's story is canon, but only the parts we want." None of what happened in the Thrawn trilogy is canon. They're re-introducing his character entirely to make it less of a jumbled mess to incorporate him into the story. Yes, he behaves like the Thrawn fans know and love, and he looks the same, but it would have been nonsensical to try to specify that random pieces of canon were true, while others weren't.

What happens if you want to keep Kyle Katarn canon? Then you'd have to make the Jedi Academy games canon, along with any other tangential references included in whatever media Kyle appeared in. Otherwise, you'd have a story filled with both canon and non-canon elements, and that obviously makes no sense. So, the reasonable thing to do is just wipe that character's slate clean, and start from the beginning.

But there's a lot of EU material that doesn't conflict with any of the new stuff that Disney is adding. They could still have new Thrawn without the Thrawn trilogy and still have Outbound Flight be canon for example. Same with KOTOR and other material from Pre-Clone Wars era since Disney wants to move forward in the timeline, not backwards.

Quote from: Winy on November 16, 2016, 08:35:00 PM

But they aren't saying "Okay, Thrawn's story is canon, but only the parts we want." None of what happened in the Thrawn trilogy is canon. They're re-introducing his character entirely to make it less of a jumbled mess to incorporate him into the story. Yes, he behaves like the Thrawn fans know and love, and he looks the same, but it would have been nonsensical to try to specify that random pieces of canon were true, while others weren't.

What happens if you want to keep Kyle Katarn canon? Then you'd have to make the Jedi Academy games canon, along with any other tangential references included in whatever media Kyle appeared in. Otherwise, you'd have a story filled with both canon and non-canon elements, and that obviously makes no sense. So, the reasonable thing to do is just wipe that character's slate clean, and start from the beginning.

A lightsaber isn't a cutting torch. I think it's very obvious from pretty much any piece of Star Wars media that lightsabers aren't spectacularly bright. They'll just illuminate the area around them, but not by any crazy amount. They don't look much bright than a fluorescent rod you'd find in a closet, which obviously doesn't blind you when you get close to it.

As for how they don't get burned, obviously the heat of the blade is contained within a really small region and doesn't radiate outwards very far, if at all.

Quote from: Winy on November 16, 2016, 09:38:57 AM

A lightsaber isn't a cutting torch. I think it's very obvious from pretty much any piece of Star Wars media that lightsabers aren't spectacularly bright. They'll just illuminate the area around them, but not by any crazy amount. They don't look much bright than a fluorescent rod you'd find in a closet, which obviously doesn't blind you when you get close to it.

https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/safety_haz/welding/eyes.html

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As for how they don't get burned, obviously the heat of the blade is contained within a really small region and doesn't radiate outwards very far, if at all.

I'm not talking about the heat from the blade, I'm talking about the sparks flying at them from the metal they are burning through. A cutting torch is burning through metal which results in a shower of burning metal sparks. A llightsaber is acting in the same way so the sparks it's generating from burning through a metal door or a droid would be far hotter than a cutting torch. There's a reason why I wore long pants and protective gloves when I was cutting.