Luminara Unduli versus the droid saboteurs of Ilum

Today I want to tell you about one of my favorite secondary characters in the Cartoon Network's The Clone Wars. Her name is Luminara Unduli. She was a Jedi Master and trained Barriss Offee (you can find the post that I did on Barriss located HERE).

First off, Luminara was a complete master of Soresu style combat. In Soresu, a Jedi uses the lightsaber to establish defense. And even if an attack manages to get past a lightsaber's blade, a proper user of Soresu should be able to avoid the blow through bodily contortions. Essentially, Luminara was almost impossible to hit if she was in her fighting stance. Think of a martial art based on the principle of economy of motion. In other words, keeping up constant blade movement to build up momentum, but at the same time conserve energy. Practitioners of Soresu were marathon fighters, using their lightsaber skills to wear down and tire an opponent and take advantage of them when they made mistakes.

Luminara served as a Senior Jedi General in the fading years of the Galactic Republic. She also advised the Jedi High Council, the Supreme Chancellor, and the Galactic Senate.

Luminara Unduli (left) and Barriss Offee (right). Luminara loved Barriss, but
only in a professional way. She was often critical of Anakin who seemed to
cross a line when it came to his own padawan, Ahsoka Tano. Anakin was
always kind of cursed when it came to women, getting too attached, etc.
And we know how that story went. Luminara was always prepared to lose
her padawan, whereas Anakin would have been devastated.

Four months after the Battle of Geonosis depicted in Attack of the Clones, Luminara led Offee to the secret Jedi Temple on the icy world Ilum. This is where the Jedi go to construct their final lightsaber (a right of passage so to speak). During the construction ceremony, Master and Padawan were attacked by cloaked Separatist chameleon droids, which had infiltrated the temple in an attempt to destroy the cavern's precious natural lightsaber crystals. In the destruction of the temple, Barriss and Luminara held up the roof for days with nothing but telekinesis. It's actually a pretty incredibly display of TK and goes beyond anything any of the other Jedi ever did with the same power. I think Barriss and Luminara together had the strongest telekinetic ability out of any of their contemporaries.

Below is the clip of Luminara Unduli versus the droid saboteurs of Ilum. The animation comes from the 2003 Clone Wars series which predates the one with the fantastic animation that I've been raving about for weeks now. If you are a Star Wars fan, you should watch it, because it is the only clip I know of that shows exactly how a lightsaber is assembled and what goes inside it.

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