Im planning out my first star wars film (comedy) but ive never done any sort of special effects - ever.  Im researching the best way to get glowing laser bolts to zip across the screen.  Everyone raves about Adobe After Effects but will it do lasers and will that work with full speed motion or does it take video and force you to apply effects frame by frame?  If it does frame by frame then i may as well use paint.net for free and draw in my glowing bolts that way.

My second question is about editing software.  I use Windows Movie Maker (oh, the shame) which i like because its very easy to drag/drop, sync and trim.  I dont need to explain the shortfalls - they are well known.

I know there is a list of free and excellent editing software in this forum but im looking for a personal endorsement on one or two of them so i dont need to download half the internet to find "the one".

So my questions are, what program can do lasers easiest and which editor do you use?

When i have a draft script ready ill share for critique and call for two voice actors.  . Thx