The history of Luke Skywalker’s saber is as long as that of the Star Wars saga itself. This makes sense, considering that Jedi Knights with electric swords are what Star Wars is all about (not exactly but you’re aware of what we’re talking about).
We call it Luke’s saber however it was actually Anakin’s. Obi-Wan Kenobi picked it up before he went to leave Anakin to die, after having defeated him in their duel on Mustafar In Revenge of the Sith. The saber he held for a long time years until he gave the saber to Luke during A New Hope, so fans often think of the blue saber as Luke’s.
But if the sword were originally Anakin’s, what is its story? You may recall in Attack of the Clones that Anakin lost his arm during the duel with Count Dooku, thus continuing (or starting!?) the tradition of characters having losing limbs in Star Wars movies.
After the defeat, Anakin required a second saber. This is the saber that the real story unfolds. It is the saber Anakin used when he became Darth Vader.
The saber killed The Younglings to bring about Revenge of the Sith. It was the saber the saber was used to execute Dooku Dooku with. It is the saber that killed all the people he came across at the Jedi Temple, and it is the saber with which he lost his duel with Obi-Wan.
The blue saber also had one of the most difficult beginnings in its life and was initially utilized by a promising Jedi that ever existed, and then it ended becoming the weapon of an Sith Lord. Talk about duality.
By the time it is handed over to Luke, the sword has witnessed a many bloody spills in the form of Jedi and younglings. No wonder Kylo Ren wanted it so much.
This weapon has been element of some important moments throughout Star Wars history, but in A New Hope, Luke does not get to play swashbuckler; rather it is his turn to train with it on board the Millennium Falcon. It wasn’t until the events of The Empire Strikes Back that the sword entirely became a part of Luke’s mythology.
In that film, Luke used it to free himself from the ice trappings of the wampa, and afterwards, it was utilized by Han Solo to carve up his tauntaun in order that Luke could put his frozen body inside it to shield him from frigid cold.
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The next time it gets employed is a dark period. Luke has been an exercise with Yoda with Yoda on the swampy plant Degobah. There’s a time when Luke discovers an underground cave. Ineffectively warning him not to bring the weapon, Luke has a strange dream-like experience where he must draw his sword to protect himself from advancing Darth Vader.
It is the first occasion we can see Luke utilize the saber to protect himself. That it is a mystical experience is not a detriment to the fact that Luke made use of the saber believing he was facing Vader.
It’s a given that Luke ultimately faces Vader in the Bespin’s Cloud City, where they are in an epic battle and take the sting out of each other – so much so that it’s a fight Luke won’t be able to win and loses his hand for his troubles (just as his father had prior to that – on two different occasions! ).
In the present, it is the stuff of movie legend that Vader is revealed to be Luke’s father. Imagine!
In all the excitement, Luke’s saber gets lost in a shaft – and that was the end of that episode.
When the movie is set in Return of the Jedi, Luke creates a saber of his own (while not explicitly mentioned in the film in any way, it’s an Jedi tradition to do this), and he uses that saber when he destroys Jabba’s sailbarge and, obviously in the fight against Vader on the Death Star, returning the favor by cutting of Darth Vader’s arm, an indignity he’s now suffered through three times!
What about that lost blue sword? This is where the saga of the saber starts to play out even further than any fan may have ever imagined.
30 years after it disappeared in film and real-world time, it was rediscovered again in The Force Awakens.
The sword was discovered to have been within Maz Kanata’s possession. Maz is an odd creature who seems to be aware of the Force or at least has an understanding of it. She creates Rey up to locate it, as she believes that it is the Force calls her there.
Why? We don’t know however Maz knows that the sword has to get into Rey’s hands, so she gives the sword to Finn to act as a placeholder until Rey is ready.
Finn gets to dance with an armed Stormtrooper and then fights for a bit against the father-killing Kylo Ren at which the point Rey takes hold of the sword, and fights an epic battle against Ren.
Ren Of course, Ren is the grandson of Darth Vader, the man who used to own the sword that Rey battled him with. The sword has oddly come full circle.
However, Rey was not interested in the sword of Maz in the first initial place. The dream sequence spooked her to the point that even though she knew she had to track down Luke Skywalker, she still gave his sword upon their initial meeting at the summit of the “Jedi Steps” on the island that Luke was hiding. It’s a touching moment. Luke’s blue saber has been returned to him after so many years.
One can only imagine the feelings going through Luke’s thoughts in that moment. The last time he was able to see it his father had cut off his arm and revealed himself.
What happened to the saber in The Last Jedi?
Rey gave it to Luke, who casually dropped it in the direction of the cliff. Rey was then able to train with her on the island of Achto. Kylo Ren then utilized it to take out Snoke in addition to Snoke and the Praetorian guards.
When Rey and Kylo then Force duel for possession, the saber snaps in half, ending its legacy.
Then we move on to The Rise of Skywalker
Rey’s capabilities are fully developed and she’s repaired the split saber (or maybe Leia has). Luke is able to show Rey the location where Leia’s saber was concealed at Achto Island, and boom the boom! Rey is carrying two swords on her body when he confronts Palpatine.
The Force Dyad is now so powerful between Rey that she’s able pass Ben Skywalker’s Anakin’s Saber to him, so that he can take on his Knights of Ren, who have turned against him. This is space magic, in fact.
But it indicates that the last Skywalker to wield the saber is the grandchild of Anakin Skywalker. A long and rich history for a small amount of metal.
The Reason Luke’s Lightsaber changed from Green to Blue in the movie “Return of the Jedi”
In A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, lightsabers were displayed as blue or red. Obi-Wan’s lightsaber featured the blue blade, and was later associated with the Jedi as did the one that he gifted the character Luke Skywalker. Darth Vader, however, was equipped with a red lightsaber which was then forever linked as the Sith. This all changed in Return of the Jedi when Luke Skywalker had built himself an entirely new lightsaber. The new lightsaber deviated from the established color standard that people had come to be used to, as it was green. However the first posters and promotional material of Return of the Jedi had Luke Skywalker using the traditional blue-bladed lightsaber. Luke Skywalker’s blue lightsaber was used in the trailers. Based on this, it’s easy to imagine the surprise of the audience when they saw Luke Skywalker using a green-bladed lightsaber rather than blue.
So why did we get this color change for the lightsaber? Star Wars storytelling has covered the issue from a universe-wide perspective through various layers of multimedia projects However, that was post-fact. This opened up a new field of discussion about the colors of lightsabers. The reason why Luke Skywalker walked away with a green-bladed lightsaber, rather than the expected blue had nothing to do and was all about real-life practicality.
Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber was switched from blue to green while they were filming due to the fact that it was hard to spot. It was evident during act one in Return of the Jedi when the battle on Jabba the Hutt’s sail barge was filmed during daylight hours. The blue lightsaber blends in with the blue sky that was clear. Some thought during the shoot led to a decision being made to change the color of Luke Skywalker’s brand new lightsaber to green from blue. From that point on, those who love Star Wars lightsabers suddenly had their world opened up from a blue and red combination of having other colors in addition to blue as well as red and green.
Although it didn’t make it into the final edition of the Return of the Jedi movie there’s a deleted scene that shows Luke Skywalker constructing his brand new lightsaber, using his green blade. This scene was included on an extra disc of content on the Blu-ray set that was released as “Luke’s Lightingsaber.” The scene makes sense to have this scene taken out because it would have revealed too much, and diminished the thrills that would follow in the movie.
With the introduction of a brand new Jedi lightsaber color within Return of the Jedi, the Star Wars franchise would have the possibility of having more scope for their use within the future movies. We have seen this now within the trilogy prequel. We have seen blue purple, green and blue lightsabers used by the Jedi and red being used by the Sith. We also saw lightabers in yellow used by Jedi Temple guards on The Clone Wars animated series. Of course, the lightsaber Rey Skywalker built at the close of The Rise of Skywalker was also yellow. Other notable individual entries are a black lightsaber from the Darksaber’s case the white lightsaber of Ahsoka Tano and a red lightsaber in the video game Jedi: Fallen Order.