Where Did Luke Get That Green Kyber Crystal From?

Star Wars

Dec 22

The weapon of a Jedi is one of the most well-known items in Star Wars lore. Described by Obi-Wan Kenobi as an elegant weapon for a more civilized age, a lightsaber, he said “isn’t as clumsy or random as a blaster”. It was rather a powerful weapon that protected generation after generation of Jedi as they attempted to keep the peace in the galaxy. The story of how Luke Skywalker received his first lightsaber is common knowledge for most Star Wars fans but how he came about his second one is more of a mystery.

After Luke was rescued by Obi-Wan on Tatooine he was presented with his first lightsaber. Ben watched (and protected) Luke his entire life but kept his distance until the time was right. He knew Anakin’s offspring was the key to restoring the balance to the force but waited until the moment presented itself. During the events of A New Hope, Ben was given the perfect opportunity when Luke was ambushed by Tuskens. He saved Luke and later (in his dwelling) informed him that his father was not just a pilot but rather a former Jedi Knight, was killed by Darth Vader, and that his father requested that the lightsaber be passed down to him when the time was right.

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Luke was apprehensive at first but after his Uncle and Aunt were murdered by the Empire, he took the lightsaber and began his journey toward becoming a hero and Jedi. After the events of A New Hope, Luke was training with Yoda on Dagobah where he had a terrible vision. He saw a city in the clouds but more importantly, he saw his friends, Han and Leia in pain. He rushed to rescue them but encountered Vader instead. Luke and Darth had a battle for the ages that resulted in Luke losing his hand (and lightsaber) along with discovering that Kenobi had lied to him about the identity of his father.

Star Wars canon changes from time to time and there are a few different explanations as to how the young Jedi acquired his new weapon after his fight with Darth Vader. The Legends book Shadows of the Empire (which took place in between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) describes Luke carefully building his lightsaber over the course of a month. He used spare parts from Mos Eisley and used a synthetic lightsaber crystal he learned how to make from notes left behind by Obi-Wan. The book describes a more uneasy and unsure version of Luke that we see in Return of the Jedi:

“He had followed the instructions to the letter; he was pretty good with tools and it ought to be okay, but there was a small worry that when he switched it on it might not work. That would be embarrassing. Or worse, it might work in a way it wasn’t supposed to. That would be worse than embarrassing: Luke Skywalker, an up-and-coming Jedi Knight, a man who had gone one-on-one with Darth Vader and lived to tell of it, vaporized when his faulty lightsaber blew up. So far he’d been very careful constructing the thing, triple-checking each step, and to get this far had taken almost a month. The book said a Jedi Master in a hurry could construct a new lightsaber in a couple of days.”

A more recent explanation comes in the (canon) junior novelization, Return of the Jedi: Beware the Power of the Dark Side. Luke (like in Legends) finds instructions from Obi-Wan and is able to construct a lightsaber in a cave on Tatooine. The book describes Luke discovering that he needed the power of the Force to construct the weapon and not just the parts themselves. There is also a deleted scene of this moment from Return of the Jedi but it was cut from the final draft. One fun fan theory suggests that Luke used the crystal that once belonged to Qui-Gon Jinn (Obi-Wan’s former master). While that conclusion is extremely plausible it has never been confirmed in the main canon.

Lukę Skywalker The Last Jedi — Image Source: Hdqwalls

Luke’s second lightsaber had not been seen since the 1983 release of Return of the Jedi but made its return recently in the Disney+ series The Mandalorian and the film The Last Jedi. Luke wielded the green-bladed weapon in a flashback in the 2017 movie and in an explosive fight scene where he saved Din and his friends, before taking Grogu to train with him. We may get more of Luke and his weapon in the Ahsoka series or The Mandalorian season 3 but we will have to wait and see.

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