The sequel trilogy has been one of the greatest points of contention for the Star Wars fandom. The three movies, starting from Episode VII: The Force Awakens and ending at Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, split the fandom down to its core.
These movies have their supporters, who believe that the plotlines presented throughout them are near perfect and bring a fresh take on Star Wars with new characters. On the other hand, the movies also garnered a lot of hate since they took away from what Star Wars is all about.
Despite this, one of the major crowd pleasers throughout the entire sequel trilogy was the return of a fan favorite Lightsaber. The famous Lightsaber first wielded by Anakin Skywalker was found by Rey in The Force Awakens and became her primary weapon throughout the movies.
The Lightsaber itself has quite a bit of history attached to it. It was created and first used by Anakin Skywalker after he lost his first Lightsaber while fighting Count Dooku on Geonosis.
The Lightsaber was used by Anakin—then turned Vader—to execute Order 66, and was dubbed “the Youngling Slayer 9000” by the fandom. It was then taken by Obi-Wan Kenobi after he defeated Darth Vader on Mustafar.
The Lightsaber was then given to Luke Skywalker by Obi-Wan Kenobi when Luke’s Jedi training first began. Luke used the Lightsaber to duel Darth Vader in Cloud City, where his hand got cut off and the Lightsaber fell away into the depths of the city.
The Lightsaber resurfaced almost 30 years later. The Lightsaber called Rey when she visited Maz Kanata’s castle with Han Solo in Episode VII: The Force Awakens.
The questions around how Rey found the Lightsaber, and how it wound up where it was, are what we hope to answer in this article. So, the first question we must answer is:
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Where Does Rey Find Luke Skywalker’s Lightsaber?
In Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Rey, Finn, Chewbacca, and Han Solo travel to Takodana, a planet situated in the Middle Rim of the Galaxy Far Far Away. Han takes the crew here to meet the pirate queen, Maz Kanata.
Upon their arrival outside Maz Kanata’s castle, Han goes off with Maz to discuss business and Finn goes off to secure transport to help him escape the clutches of the First Order. Rey is left alone to explore the castle and finds her way into the basement.
In the basement, she hears a voice calling to her from inside a chest hidden in the back of the room. As Rey approaches the chest, the voice gets louder and stronger until she opens the chest and finds Luke Skywalker’s old Lightsaber inside.
Out of plain curiosity, Rey touches the Lightsaber and is instantly plagued by visions of the Lightsaber’s history and all that it has been through. These visions scare Rey, who comes face to face with Maz Kanata as soon as they end, and Rey tries to run.
After Rey’s refusal to take the Lightsaber, Maz Kanata gives the Lightsaber to Finn to give to her later.
Near the end of the movie, Rey pulls the Lightsaber to her using the Force and uses it to fight Kylo Ren in the forests of Ilum. This turns out to be the moment that Rey becomes the third Force User to claim this Lightsaber.
But now that we know where Rey found the Lightsaber, the next question we must answer is:
How did Rey find Luke Skywalker’s Lightsaber?
As we know, finding a Lightsaber in the Star Wars universe is not that difficult. Or at the very least, during the time of the Jedi and the Galactic Republic, Lightsabers were not the mythical rare weapons that they evolved to become.
After Order 66 and the fall of the Jedi Order, most Lightsabers were either destroyed by the Empire or lost to time and space. And even though more were created during the time of the New Jedi Order, founded by Luke, they shared the same fate as well after its fall.
But the answer to how Rey found this specific Lightsaber is more than just the fact that she stumbled onto it by accident in the basement of Maz Kanata’s castle. The Lightsaber called to her when she was close enough to sense it.
The real question we must answer is why did the Lightsaber call to Rey and nobody else. After all, Rey was not the only Force-sensitive being to have been in its proximity. Especially if the theories about Maz being Force-sensitive are to be believed.
The theories surrounding the release of Episode VII: The Force Awakens, and those that followed in the months after it were all filled with predictions of why the Lightsaber called to Rey specifically. But most of those theories will be discussed in an upcoming article that answers this question.
For now, all we can assume is that Rey found the Lightsaber because she was Force-sensitive, and the Lightsaber called her to itself. But one last question remains about how the Lightsaber got to Rey.
Who caught the Lightsaber when it fell from Luke’s hand in Cloud City?
During the unforgettable duel over Cloud City in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker lost his hand after Darth Vader cut it off. This also resulted in him losing his Lightsaber and dropping it into the depths of Cloud City.
For the longest time in Star Wars history, this Lightsaber was considered lost forever. Until, however, it resurfaced in Episode VII: The Force Awakens, when Rey found and claimed it. But a major chunk of the Lightsaber’s history is lost between these two events.
In Star Wars #4 by Marvel Comics, it was revealed to Luke in a Force Vision that his Lightsaber had been caught by a mysterious hooded figure after it fell through Cloud City. This figure tells Luke to “follow his destiny” in this vision and that was all we found out in that issue of the comic.
The next edition revealed to us just who this hooded figure was. The person to catch Luke’s falling Lightsaber was none other than Verla. It is okay if you do know who that is, we’ve got you covered.
Verla was first introduced in Darth Vader #5, from the Dark Lord of The Sith comic arc. She was a Jedi trainee who learned under Ferren Barr, a survivor of Order 66, and was responsible for recounting the history of Order 66 and the Jedi Order to Luke Skywalker in that comic.
Despite that, in this version of the storyline, Verla learns that Luke is the son of Darth Vader and decides to kill him, which is where the comic ends. It remains to be seen in the new issue whether they will put their issues aside or not.
Conclusion
After going into much detail about how the lightsaber that initially belonged to Anakin Skywalker wound up in the hands of Rey Palpatine, we are sure that most (if not all) of your questions have been answered.
Questions related to the location of the lightsaber before Rey found it, as well as the mysterious figure that caught it when it dropped into Cloud City, have plagued us for a long time, but now we have finally put them to rest.