Well, film/TV canon trumps EU.
For now. -_-
Now that I think about it - I remember that in the Jedi Apprentice series, Gantoris builds a saber that can vary its blade length, but I can't recall anything about varied power cycles off the top of my head.
Most sabers have blade length adjustment features. It's just that most of the Jedi/Sith we see have already worked out what length they are comfortable with, so we never see them use this feature. One aspect of Darth Maul's staff was, like the one of Exar Kun, each side was dual phase. This meant that the saber had 2 preset blade lengths that could be switched with the press of a button. The advantage would come from an opponent getting use to an
assumed fixed length and underestimating your reach.
My Pazaak set came today!
You watch your
mouth...er...fingers.
And there's the gap I was looking for - have not yet gotten into Rebels, but that would prove that the light dagger concept is viable.
Quite viable. In fact Darth Torin is presently working on something akin to this:
Rebels was super fun to watch. Especially as it got into the last seasons. While the dagger concept is viable, you would have to do some serious modifications to allow it to work. If you wanted a full sized hilt with a short blade, that would be pretty easy (or at least, easier). It is when you get into a small hilt that it would become a problem. There is just so much stuff required to fit into a hilt to make it work. Could they do it for a movie, yes. But it would give Logos another thing to complain about, because it doesn't follow any of the preset rules in SW. It would be purely for the sake of doing it, and they would not provide an adequate explanation for some viewers.
If done within reason, I wouldn't have anything to complain about. But when they have it be flat disks incorporated into the palms of gloves, yeah I'm gonna have an issue. Although I've always felt that Yoda's saber was a little
too small for a shoto, it wasn't beyond reason. I could easily see someone rocking twin shotos with the blade lengths turned down.
In this case, I don't see any need for a shorter blade, as proven by the example
I believe most of the energy required for a lightsaber blade is needed towards creating both the plasma blade and the containment (magnetic?) field. The size of said blade and containment field would only require a little more or less energy to modify the length, but it may prove to be enough difference to allow for a smaller power cell.
For me, blade length is more an aspect of fighting style. I personally prefer a 36" on my single sabers. But when I dual wield or staff, I prefer 32s. Reasons why a samurai always carries 3 swords: katana (60 - 73cm), wakizashi (30 - 60cm), and tanto (15 - 30cm). Each length has an attack range most effective to the desired task, but each blade is roughly the same style.
I'm not sure the containment field is magnetic. Magnetism (in my mind) wouldn't be disrupted my organic material, allowing the blade energy to escape and penetrate. And when dealing with metals, it might stick. I always viewed the field to be the same type of barrier created by energy shields. They repel energy sources, that's why sabers don't penetrate blades or force fields, and also deflect blast shots. The containment field acts like a bubble that keeps the kyber energy from escaping in a continuous beam. When it is interrupted by physical matter the energy is released and destroys the obstruction until the field can be reestablished.
