Lightsaber evolution is a 'Star Wars' calling card

Posted Monday, December 1, 2014 at 4:58 PM Central
Last updated Wednesday, December 3, 2014 at 4:16 PM Central

by John Couture

By now, I'm sure that you've seen the trailer for The Force Awakens. If not, then you should really go check it out as the rest of this article will be yet another impossibly specific breakdown of approximately 1.6 seconds of footage. That's almost 1/44th of the entire trailer after all, but it's a really important couple of seconds and I might argue the most telling as to what to expect come next December.

I'm talking about the images from 0:54 to 0:56 seconds, or what's being more commonly referred to as the lightsaber reveal. For a teaser, The Force Awakens trailer had just about everything that you'd want to see in a new Star Wars trailer. OK fine, there were no returning characters (at least overtly), but there were so many other things that make the films what they are that we should be satiated until the next trailer drops (probably sometime next Summer).

We had tie-fighters, stormtroopers and the Millenium @#$%&$^ Falcon. It was at once a nostalgia piece and yet it also introduced us to at least three, maybe four new characters. That's a heck of a lot of things to cram into 88 seconds and yet J.J. Abrams did so brilliantly.

The rest of the trailer has been dissected back and forth and back again, but I haven't seen too much (other than the obvious observations) speculation on this lightsaber. The prevailing wisdom is that it's red so it must belong to a Sith Lord. Also, people hate the two little cross guard lightsabers that make it look more like a super-powered Excalibur than a traditional lightsaber.

Well, to you, I say that you should have expected it. If there's one thing about teaser trailers for first films of the respective trilogies, it's all about lightsaber innovation. In the teaser for A New Hope, the old trusty lightsaber makes its debut.

Then, in Phantom Menace, George Lucas felt the need to one-up himself by introducing the dual-bladed lightsaber.

This need to innovate in the prequels didn't end in the first Film. In Attack of the Clones, we get a brief glimpse of Count Dooku's unique lightsaber with the curved hilt, or dueling lightsaber.

Yep, you guessed it. Yoda and the Emperor brandish their lightsabers in the teaser for Revenge of the Sith.

In case you thought that this was simply some sort of Lucas fetish, an innovative lightsaber was on full display in the first clip from the new animated series Star Wars Rebels.

So, in other words, the last thing we should have been surprised to see in The Force Awakens trailer was a new lightsaber. It's sort of thing with a tradition and everything. The dual cross guards aside, this lightsaber is unique for other reasons. First, it's not as smooth and polished as most lightsabers that we've seen in the series.

Some speculate that this is because the lightsaber was shoddily put together by someone who wasn't that educated in the force. I know that diehard fans might not like this, but the simple explanation is that this could just be the new way that lightsabers are going to look in the new trilogy.

I don't care what you say, but I think this lightsaber is completely badass. It just looks dangerous and dark and it represents everything that I want to see in the new Star Wars films. Personally, I think that the look of this lightsaber is unique to this character because I don't think J.J. is crazy enough to change something as iconic as every lightsaber.

Of course, that begs several other questions. Who is this mysterious dark character and where is he (or she)? First, what's this mystery location? We know from leaks that there will be an icy planet similar to, but not Hoth. Could this be our first look at Ilum, the ancient planet that is sacred to the Jedi.

Ilum is home to the crystal caves where Jedi find the kyber crystals that form the basis of their lightsabers. Sith Lords use a synthetic crystal which explains the red color and could explain the rough look of this lightsaber. But if this character is indeed someone dabbling in the dark side and this is Ilum, could they have procured a kyber crystal and used it to create their own lightsaber? That could certainly explain the look if the crystal isn't quite in tune with the owner of the lightsaber.

As to which character is holding the lightsaber, that's the question that is really up for debate. There have been plenty of theories out there, but one that I'm fond of is that it's newcomer Adam Driver. There has been plenty of speculation that Adam is playing a baddie and those seem to be getting more traction now that it has been revealed that Oscar Isaac is a rebel flying an X-wing.

And then there's this. You'll have to fast forward to the 2:55 part to see Adam Driver walking. He has a very pronounced lope where he carries his left side a bit higher than the right. To me, there's no question that this is same gait we see in The Force Awakens trailer

Then there's this clip from Girls. Again, the pronounced gait that I feel this new mysterious character also possesses.

I know what you're saying, but I heard from a friend that they have a shot of Adam Driver in a rebel X-wing suit. I've seen this shot and yes, it does bare a striking resemblance to Adam Driver, but I have two theories. One is that J.J. is brilliant and this was deliberate misdirection. Two is that Adam's character starts out on the good side but then gets swayed over to the dark side.

If we buy that John Boyega is indeed a stormtrooper and not simply a rebel spy incognito, then this would set up a nice divergence of arcs where Driver starts good and turns bad while Boyega starts bad and ends up good. Of course, their inevitable confrontation is then made all the more juicier.

So, what do you think? Am I guilty of overthinking this a bit? Let us know. In the spirit of this article, I found this image that creates some rather goofy lightsaber iterations.