The High Republic is getting some fancy lightsaber designs befitting the era and Star Wars has just revealed a look at one of these special weapons.
With Star Wars introducing a brand new era with The High Republic, a bunch of exciting new elements are being introduced to the canon, including the Jedi’s lightsaber designs.
These aren’t your basic saber hilts that we are used to from the series so far but weapons with a far more intricate and ornate design to suit the Jedi in their pomp.
Michael Siglain, Lucasfilm publishing’s creative director says: “We wanted to make the Jedi distinctive and instantly recognizable as Jedi Knights of the High Republic, and that applies not only to their clothing but to their lightsabers, as well. Internally, we often refer to the Jedi of this era as ‘the Jedi Knights of the Round Table.’ Taking that idea one step further, their sabers can be viewed as their own versions of Excalibur.”
To give us a taste, StarWars.com has shown off one of these new sabers, belonging to Jedi Master Stellan Gios. The blade has a cross guard like Kylo-Ren’s but with a major difference to make it more effective.
The full preview will be available in The Lightsaber Collection, a compendium coming October 20 but illustration manager Jeff R. Thomas has said: “When designing Stellan’s lightsaber, I looked at the iconic lightsabers that have already been established. He needed an iconic weapon that could stand beside the other famous lightsabers, but at the same time be unique to him and evoke the time period of the High Republic.”
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Inspiration was taken from Kylo Ren’s iconic cross-saber but it was realised that this wasn’t quite going to work: “With the High Republic, we wanted to implement a more traditional crossguard, but I still wanted to include the saber-blade into the crossguard design, so that Stellan would be able to defend himself against saber attacks. That’s where Excalibur came into play.
“What would a lightsaber version of Excalibur look like? I started sketching and came up with a silhouette I really liked, but the practicality of holstering/sheathing it nagged at me until I had the idea that the crossguard didn’t have to be stationary. Perhaps it could activate or deactivate with the saber. So after some more sketches and some back and forth with Lucasfilm, it was decided that the crossguard would activate as opposed to always being open, which would give the saber the slimmer silhouette while holstered and would lend itself to some great visuals when activating.”
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The weapon is certainly unique looking and a beautiful design. Hopefully, we get to see these elegant new lightsabers in action on the screen one day.
