#Put Paul Giamatti in Star Wars already! Let him play a Sith in The Acolyte! Or let him motion capture a gungan.

[david-talks-sw]

I wanna share a moment of questionable reaching to support “criticism” of something in SW but first I just wanna check.

You think the Sabine saber wound discourse is dumb, right? With some people freaking out about her surviving what I think is one of, if not the least severe saber impalement we’ve ever seen

Yes.

I agree that maybe they should stop with the "stabbed-victim-surviving" trope simply because of how many eye-rolls and polemics it causes. At this point if someone gets stabbed by a lightsaber, I know they'll probably live.

But that being said, like... Sabine is a regular in the show.

They're not gonna kill her off in Episode #1. I know Sabine will live because she's too important to die so soon.

I know Sabine will live because characters like her don't die before addressing, let alone completing, a character arc.

I know Sabine will live because she's emanating major protag energy and isn't played by an actor with secondary-character energy like Paul Giamatti (god bless him).

I know Sabine will live because I'm a moviegoer in 2024, as long as a character isn't straight-up decapitated, then has their soul set on fire for good measure, I assume there's a chance they're not dead yet. You show me someone - ANYONE - getting stabbed anywhere that isn't the heart? They'll live. Because them's the movie rules.

Literally any of the above out-of-universe reasons trump the deadliness of any in-universe laser sword.

Does me having this approach suck because it implies that mainstream films and shows have lost all ability to craft stakes I can actually perceive as high?

Yes.

But at least it stops me from freaking out when something like that happens, like it did with Sabine. The whole time people were bitching about it, the only thing that came to my mind was "who cares? seriously?"