The Star Wars saga is full of iconic imagery, characters, weapons, and spaceships, but perhaps none more so than the lightsaber. They’re powerful weapons and tools, and we’re told time and again throughout the films how important they are — each weapon marks the personal style of its Jedi wielder — and how critical it is that each warrior never lose theirs.
But it wasn’t until the modern prequel Star Wars movies that the lightsaber really came into its own on film. And that has to do with a subtle change that finally gave the weapons their namesake quality by actually casting light.
There’s a subtle wrongness that permeates the sabers in both the original trilogy and the prequel Star Wars films that makes them always feel a step…