SFX

LET THERE BE LIGHTSABER

STAR WARS SET DECORATOR ROGER CHRISTIAN ON THE CREATION OF THE JEDI’S ICONIC WEAPON

- Oliver Pfeiffer

ThE FORCE AWAKENS powerfully concluded with Rey attempting to hand an ageing Luke skywalker his thought-tobe-lost lightsaber. Breaking with Star Wars tradition, The Last Jedi will continue precisely from this pivotal moment, bringing a potent symmetry to proceeding­s 40 years on from A new hope, where obi-wan Kenobi famously presented that same saber to the young Luke.

“when I first read the script to Star Wars I knew the lightsaber could be iconic – that’s why I took so much care finding something that looked like it was a real and functional weapon,” says Roger Christian, who was tasked with turning George Lucas’s vision and consequent­ly production illustrato­r Ralph McQuarrie’s concept painting of the ’saber into a silver screen reality.

Due to budgetary constraint­s, the oscarwinni­ng Star Wars set decorator built the original Jedi weapon for A new hope from silver tubed objects he fortuitous­ly retrieved in a dusty discarded cardboard box from a photograph­ic shop in London’s Great marlboroug­h street, altering them into the iconic design we know today.

“I was scrambling around trying to find something that would fit into this world and I found these three-cell flashgun handles which had a quality to them that was very hard to design,” he tells SFX. “It had a red firing button and all of those things on it that looked functional. to make the handle more weaponlike I stuck seven carefully cut black rubber t-strips to length evenly around the handle. I then inserted a bubble strip of LeD lights. this transforma­tion just turned everything on its head. as soon as George saw it he smiled: it was the perfect weight and size and looked exactly how he had described.”

while an astonishin­g invention for the cinema era, Lucas’s vision for the lightsaber was greatly influenced by mythology and the legend of King arthur. “excalibur is right at the heart of it!” continues Christian. “that sword has a mythology behind it and George passed that on to the Jedi. It’s the power that gives [King arthur] the ability to do what he had to do to rule, fight and succeed. It’s also a sword within the ancient samurai tradition of fighting; it’s a more mythic weapon than a gun and that’s the reason I believe the lightsaber took off in the collective imaginatio­n. when it lit up that first time it just wowed audiences!”

after witnessing Rey’s extraordin­ary lightsaber moves in the latest Last Jedi trailer, it looks like we’re about to be wowed all over again, mirroring the destinies of several key Star Wars characters over the entire saga.

“obi-wan Kenobi taking it out of that trunk, presenting it as Luke’s father’s weapon and announcing that it’s the weapon of a Jedi – that moment was hugely important in the first Star Wars film as it’s a moment of destiny for Luke,” considers Christian. “now we’re coming back to that kind of moment with the new films – where they’ve become all about this power and the Jedi weapon. the lightsaber has now become more than the icon of the film – it’s become a major plot point!”

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