Lightsabers are up there with X-Wings, the Millennium Falcon, and Yoda as Star Wars‘ most iconic elements. The glowing white-hot blades are regularly ranked among the coolest fictional weapons of all time, have a ridiculous amount of lore behind them, and saber duels are pivotal moments in any Star Wars story.
But lately, there’s been grumblings that modern Star Wars hasn’t been doing them justice. The Disney Plus Star Wars shows have begun using physical glow-stick props rather than rotoscoping the blade, with the upside that they now cast light onto their surroundings but the downside that they look considerably less otherworldly.
The two-episode Ahsoka premiere wasn’t shy about using the weapon, though it’s safe to say the duel between an out-of-practice Sabine Wren and teen Dark Side discipline Shin Hati isn’t going to make anyone’s Star Wars top ten fights. That fight ended with Sabine Wren getting a 20,000F blade shoved through her torso, though a dab of Bacta later and she was back to normal. So, have lightsabers lost their edge?
Fans are debating this on r/StarWars, pointing out we should be seeing severed limbs and hands flying all over the place:
“In the OT and PT we see dismemberment time and again and to me, getting a hand cut off feels like a pretty distinctly Star Warsy injury. Sure, it’s not potentially fatal so maybe there isn’t that same feeling of peril but given the state of prostheses in Star Wars, if you want an injury a character can bounce back from in the short term, why not take a hand?”
Perhaps Disney simply wants to avoid things being too gruesome, though the replies state that “if the wounds they cause are trivial, then it kind of defeats the point”. We agree, and one of the best things about them is their obvious lethality. After all, way back in A New Hope it only takes a second for Obi-Wan to disarm a rowdy alien in the Mos Eisley cantina.
With Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon now snapping at Star Wars‘ heels with its own extremely badass take on lightsabers, let’s hope Lucasfilm ups its game. Let’s face it, being impaled by a lightsaber should be a fatal injury.
Ahsoka airs Wednesdays on Disney Plus.