Quicksand Fans

Star Wars : Evolution of the Lightsaber Duel

Released just before the Force Awakens, and narrated by Mark Hamil, not a bad little mini-documentary for those that remain unaware of the genesis of lightsaber combat.

And
Hoping they dont fuck him up in Ep 8 and 9...
But still, Luke Skywalker vs Darth Vader Return of the Jedi
Luke Skywalker's finest hour
"Never. I'll never turn to the Dark Side..." Suck it, all you Kylo bitches

Faster seems more realistic but hard to tell. The blade is plasma which doesn't weigh anything (ok theoretically it weighs something but you'd need like a mass spectrometer to measure it) but considering the the power output required the handle might weigh as much as a small car battery.

Some of the in 'verse splaining originally had them powered by belt packs, but that quickly collapsed, even in the original. Also, they supposedly wanted them to be heavy, needing 2 hands to wield them, as well as some sort of gyroscopic effect from the generated blade.
Really, it can get a little silly , and you end up getting into treknology, which is the LAST thing you want to do However, they are using the idea that it is an advanced energy blade that MUST be properly assembled, and it helps if it is also aesthetically pleasing. (Palpatine's paired golden sabers, Count Dooku's curved hilt, Obi-Wan's simple pure design) That Ren's is a FLAWED POS is why it looks the way it does, and also to me underlines what a whining little FAIL he is.

The "official" tech manual says something about an "energy stream" between two contact points built into the hilt shaped into along thin loop via magnetic field. It's either an electrical arc or a plasma stream. The rough unstable look of Ren's blade and the fact that you can look at it without going blind make me lean towards plasma. Either way you need a serious no shit battery in there lol.

Power cells in the SW 'verse tend to make anything in the real-life 21st century very caveman-like. Maybe pre-caveman From blasters to starship weaponry, it's best not to think about it The efficiency , especially in a lightsaber , must be insane. Luke/Anakin's saber just as an example; it probably sat in Obi-Wan's trunk for nearly two decades before it was ignited again. And now, after being lost for god alone knows how long in Cloud City (and surviving that fall...) it ignited without a beat as was used in combat. More than once. The whole bit with Ren's using a "broken crystal" is just stupid. For one thing, looking like a flawed piece of shit isn't kewl. Or intimidating. It looks like a flawed piece of shit. In fact, way back when we only had 3 movies to complain about there was a bit in one of the EU books that didn't suck where Luke was assembling his new lightsaber using a book in Obi-Wan's house. He had a line where he paused activating it, since "here lies Luke Skywalker, hero of the Alliance, fried to a crisp, because he couldn't follow a simple circuit diagram.." wasn't the thing he wanted on his headstone. So making these things precisely is one of the skills a jedi -and sith - have to master.