How The Lightsaber Was 'Forged'

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By Culture SlatePublished 2 years ago • 4 min read

Star Wars fans know the in-universe process of how a lightsaber is forged. A Jedi finds a kyber crystal and uses it to construct their own lightsaber. In the old days, Jedi younglings would go through a rite of passage called “The Gathering,” where they would obtain the kyber crystal after facing their deepest fears and insecurities. After the fall of the Republic and the Jedi Order, the process was less formal and less refined. Although, the kyber crystal remains the core of the “elegant weapon for a more civilized age.”

How exactly did the lightsaber come about outside the galaxy, far, far away, in our real world? In creating this never seen before space opera, George Lucas was inspired by “Errol Flynn kinds of movies” from the 1940s. He also liked the Japanese idea of bushido and how sword fighting involves honor, skill, and craftsmanship and has a higher spiritual meaning. Thus, the idea of a futuristic laser sword was born.

For many years after the lightsaber first appeared on screen in 1977, children (and some adults) would pick up household objects and wave them around, imagining themselves a lightsaber-wielding Jedi. While our flashlights, wrapping paper tubes, etc., do not compare to the sophisticated models created by Hasbro, you would be surprised to find that the origin of the lightsaber in Star Wars was not that far off from the simple cylinder-like objects we find around the house.

Roger Christian, set dresser for Star Wars: A New Hope and the man responsible for bringing George Lucas’s vision to live on screen, gave StarWars.com a behind-the-scene look:

“The special effects team under John Stears made quite a few torches that looked terrible. They looked like just metal round things, that George kept rejecting and rejecting...so I went to the camera shop that we always bought all our equipment from, in central London. I bought the lenses and then, the owner was just there. I said, “Do you have anything I could look at that might be odd or strange or different, that might be to do with cameras or flashes?” And he said, “Well, look, there’s a whole load of boxes under that shelf there. I haven’t looked in them for years, I don’t know what’s in there.” It was literally the first box I pulled out and pushed the dust off the top of it and opened it. And in the tissue paper there was this Graflex. I just took it out and knew that I had found the holy grail. It looked so beautiful. It had the red firing button, it had another button, and it was weighty and exactly the right size...”

Christian was essentially playing MacGyver when he constructed the prop for the movie. Ironically, this was probably not far from the in-universe process Luke and Rey went through to build their lightsabers.

“I stuck the t-strip that I’d used for the handle of the stormtroopers’ weapon. I stuck that around the [lightsaber] handle. I had broken-down calculators, and I loved the little bubble strip which illuminated the numbers underneath, and magnified them so you could read it on the screen. That fit perfectly into the clip. And I called George over and he just held it and smiled...[Luke] would have to hang it on his belt. So I stuck a d-ring on the end of it, and that was it.”

We would see Obi-Wan bring this exact lightsaber out of his box to give to Luke.

The lightsaber has become synonymous with the Star Wars saga. As the story of Star Wars evolves and expands into the past and the future, the simple cylindrical weapon would also grow to fit the many hands that wield it. It only took one man’s imagination to create an icon that has lasted to this day. After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Christian agreed:

“It’s pure joy to see people so incredibly identifying with something so simple, but it’s so iconic. It makes me smile now... It’s really coming into its own and there it is, 40 years later, something I made for about probably 12 pounds. [Laughs]”

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