SPECULATION Why is Luke's / Anakin's saber important

Tbh I have no idea. Why a single dinky lightsaber is at all relevant is beyond me. My only hunch is that it's one of the only traces of Luke left and one of the new powers that came with the Force, "awakening," was the ability to find where people are by using something that belonged to them/is associated with them. Maybe the puzzle to Luke's location Threepio solves was inside the lightsaber. Why it would be or why the lightsaber was in the middle of space near Jakku is anybody's guess. I'm sure it'll tie into whatever reason it is that Luke is a hermit that nobody can find or something like that.

 

Man, with the Disney, Star Wars, and Rebel wikis, it's getting to be too many to keep up with! Apparently there's a Lucasfilm as well!

Interesting. I never really gave much thought to the green saber, but considering the lengths we've been shown that it takes to acquire a crystal, I suppose it would make sense for Luke's RotJ crystal to be synthetic. Maybe he found the lightsaber version of "The Anarchist Cookbook" or something.

Though at the same time it doesn't seem to have any footnote or source for that info. Did I just miss it?

EDIT: In fact I don't seem to find any sources, and instead a comment section at the bottom. The Disney wiki already seems a less credible source than say the Wookieepedia in my view.

 

I think the blue Lightsaber is important because Anakin built it. And we know that he was born of, and was strong with the Force.

 

It's important because it's discovery reveals the existence of the third order?

A guy can dream

 

I think Snoke looted Vader's grave because he has built a cult of Vader in the very fabric of the First Order. Vader is now a religious figure and like Christ, artifacts linked to him are of extreme symbolic importance. I also believe these are the lure he uses to entice and seduce Kylo as he grows, if in fact he is the Grandson of the Dark Lord.

Bluestreaking, I like the Third Order theory. I hope it is in fact the Order from which the Jedi and Sith split from long ago, a group who advocated used of the dark and light. Keep up the dream, it is a good one.

 

Forgetting what has been rumored about its value in TFA, I believe Anakin's/Luke's light-saber is important for its sheer historical value. Or if you value such things, the pride of owning it, and the "street cred" that having it buys you. Beyond that an aspiring or actual Sith Lord, or a Dark Side acolyte would revel in owning the weapon of one (or two) of their greatest enemies/prizes (prizes in that Anakin was their greatest foe who was turned to the Dark Side).

 

The Ultimate Star Wars book (new canon) mentions nothing of the blue saber crystal being "natural" and also nothing about the green being "synthetic".

That being said, in Clone Wars, Obi and Anakin find a massive supposedly naturally occurring BLUE Kyber crystal on Utapau. And the 2nd Death Stars' lasers were powered by a massive GREEN Kyber crystal.

For clarification on the Clone Wars episode, it was not a finished episode and the pics online show the crystal as green, however the pic in Ultimate Star Wars shows it as blue.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Crystal_Crisis

 

Psychometry is now canon. Introducing it in Dark Disciple lays the groundwork for the importance of the Lightsaber.

5. Psychometry

Some Force powers are more rare than others, and Jedi Master Quinlan Vos is the only known Jedi with psychometry. The ability means you can touch an object and learn about people or events associated with it. Psychometry is helpful for tracking and investigating...

http://www.starwars.com/news/5-force-powers-to-use-in-real-life-situations

 

I keep thinking that out of anything that is important that spans the two trilogies, Artoo would be a valuable commodity, if his memory has truly never been wiped. He was Anakin's property up until and even shortly after he turned to the Dark side and became Vader. What secrets that little guy might contain....

 

Also from the Disney wiki:
The construction of Luke's lightsaber was based off schematics Luke found in Obi-Wan's hut on Tatooine. Luke was able to gather most of the parts he required to build his weapon from various vendors in the city of Mos Eisley, including a high-energy reflector cup, power cells and a focusing lens. However, Luke was unable to obtain a lightsaber crystal and was forced to fabricate his own, utilizing a small blast furnace and a book of instructions found within the home of his fallen Master.

The weapon possessed superior balance to Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber. Possibly as a result of utilizing a synthetic crystal, the lightsaber made a distinctive snap-hiss sound when activated, which was a different sound to that emitted by his father's weapon.

http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber

 

I've always preferred the theory that the crystal in Luke's saber was found by him in Obi-Wan's hut on Tattooine which Obi-Wan kept because it was the crystal used in his own master's lightsaber.

Meaning Luke fought and defeated the Sith with a weapon crafted from parts of Qui-Gon's green saber. Qui-Gon, the first Jedi slain by a Sith in a thousand years ultimately provided the means of their destruction.

 

I like that line of thought. Have we had any canon source that has addressed this yet? The ESB-ROTJ era has been pretty quiet so far in the new canon if I remember correctly.

 

Especially now that Shadows of the Empire is gone.

 

Luke's light saber is not important. It is a MacGuffin like Rosebud, the Maltese Falcon, Marcellus Wallace's briefcase, or Rose's necklace. It is merely there to drive the plot. Why it is important is entirely beside the point. Don't expect any meaning or reason for its importance to be laid out on screen. If you do, you will be disappointed.

 

If Luke's green saber had a synthetic crystal and it works exactly the same as a natural crystal lightsaber, why would anyone ever worry about finding a natural crystal again? For fear the other Jedis will make fun of them for having a cubic zirconia lightsaber? Luke's green lightsaber seemed to deflect lasers just fine. It stood up to Vader's lightsaber in battle. It did everything any other lightsaber has ever done. If creating a synthetic crystal is so easy a complete novice can do it in a hut in the desert, and it results in a high quality finished lightsaber, then its got to be preferable to mining a Kyber Crystal in the wild. And it would mean the Kyber Crystal itself only has value as a trophy for the padawan that earned it.

I always thought the Kyber Crystal concept was sort of dumb, and the difficulty in retro-fitting Luke's story to explain how he managed to create a lightsaber on his own highlights one of the main reasons why.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 16, 2015, Original Post Date: Jul 16, 2015 ---

All but one of those McGuffin's you mentioned have reasons for why they are important. The McGuffin is a device to propel the action, but you still need to explain its importance for the story to make sense. For instance, it's extremely important for the audience to understand the value of the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders, otherwise no one would believe that the characters would risk so much to obtain it. You could substitute a different McGuffin without fundamentally changing the point of the story, but you would still need to make it function within the context of the movie. In Temple of Doom they just made up the McGuffin, but they still had to explain the importance of the Sankara Stones to the audience in order for the character motivations to understandable.

The briefcase in Pulp Fiction is the lone exception, but it proves the rule. Tarantino avoided explaining why is was important by never showing the audience what it was. If we had seen what was in the case we would have needed to have some sort of explanation for it's importance - either by developing a plot point or having it be something with an intrinsic explanation like gold or cash. By never saying what was in the case, Tarantino skirted the issue, but you'll note just how significant the importance of a McGuffin is to an audience by how much of an issue the contents of that briefcase has continued to be even decades after the film was released.

The McGuffins may not ultimately be what those movies are about, not really, but that doesn't mean they require no explanation.

 

I still can't think of any way this lightsaber comes into someone's possession that doesn't utterly annoy me.

 

I'm happy to have it back, as long as they don't show it being found. Let it just be said it was found back in Cloud City after the events of TESB, and it's been out of play until now. We don't need every little detail about the past spoonfed to us, leave a bit to our imaginations!

 

I feel like there will be a line somewhere describing how it is been used by proponents of both the light and dark side of the force. But I think one thing is for certain, Kylo wants to get his hands on it for one reason or another.

 

Speculation right? Okay...

Remember: The Vicar's imminent death is the trigger that starts the film.

So think of all the reasons why every character heads to Jakku.

For Kylo, he's intercepted some kind of communication that Poe Dameron has been sent to get get a light saber. He is a character who we know can't construct one of his own. So his motive for wanting one is obvious.

For Poe, he's on a mission. He's following orders. Odd though that the best pilot would send such a sloppy message don't you think? More on that later.

For Rey, she lives there and ironically she's the only one not interested in the saber at all.

For Han, why would he be there? Well if the MSW treatment is right the answer is right in front of us: Rey. Rey's mentor and chaperon is gone. She is at a time where she's VERY vulnerable to the dark side.

For Finn, he's defecting, his motivation is clear. He wants to stop being a Stormtrooper. He has a better destiny than the massacre of innocent people in a village because one angry raging Sith can't find his grandfather's light saber.

See how all of that explains what's happening more than the saber? We obsess over the wrong plot points. The saber is a Macguffin, the motivations of each character above explain the circumstances on the screen.

I think the ACT I has all the answers we need for a good solid segment on Jakku and the Star Destroyer.

Maz is a little bit of a mystery box still. So is the weird Array ending.

THEORY: If you consider Rey is more important to Han and Leia than a light saber, you've now got Poe's motivation for the sloppy communication, the saber is bait to distract Kylo Ren and help Han get Rey out.