We may or may not know the story of how Luke’s lightsaber changed from blue to green in Return of the Jedi. Intertwined with that story is how Luke’s lightsaber originally appeared blue on the post for the third original movie. One particular scene helps explain both scenarios, but there are other reasons for why posters had a blue lightsaber.
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Luke’s Lightsaber Changed from Blue to Green
In the Battle of the Barge scene, or the Battle of the Great Pit of Carkoon on Tatooine, Luke almost single-handedly took on Jabba’s henchmen. Yet, there was a problem when he battled them with his lightsaber. His blue blade didn’t show up well against the blue sky.
This behind-the-scenes video about Return captures (at #7) how this issue led to Lucas changing Luke’s lightsaber to green to have a strong contrast with the sky. That rationale is also the basis for why the movie poster featured a blue lightsaber.
As this article explains, the “fight on Jabba’s barge” was “the main factor” for both why Luke’s lightsaber changed from blue to green on screen and was “originally blue” on the posters and trailers. In fact, Lucas had only planned for two lightsaber colors: blue and red.
Fans help clarify what occurred on this discussion board by stating how the change in lightsaber colors was made in post-production after the posters were released. So, the poster runs showed the original color. As one post points out, the first movie trailer also featured a blue lightsaber.
If we watch the action at 1:06 here, we can see Luke holding a blue lightsaber in this original trailer. The poster and initial trailer thus reflect the state of the movie during the production phase and some of the changes that occurred later with the editing process.
Fans weigh in here about the reasons for keeping the blue color on the posters. Some agree that because of the production-to-post-production scheduling, it was too late to make the change to green for many promotional materials. Yet, others think the creators may have retained the blue color because it was better associated with Luke and would help attract audiences.
An older discussion about this topic adds that the lightsaber color change in the film also had to do with Luke losing his hand and original blade in Empire Strikes Back. Based on conversations revealed in The Making of Return of the Jedi by Jonathan W. Rinzler, Lucas and Kasdan discussed potentially changing the color but were undecided, so print runs used the blue color.
Moreover, another fan from above, indicates the design and colors of the posters may have been more suited to blue, instead of green. So, even if they had found out about the change in time, the designers may have decided to stick with blue.
Blue Lightsaber And Revenge to Return
The change to Luke’s lightsaber coincides with some other interesting changes that happened with Return of the Jedi, including the title. Behind-the-scenes articles like this one point out how the title for the third movie was almost Revenge of the Jedi and that it too showed up on posters and trailers.
Relatedly, as we can see in the image included for # 2 on this list, the lightsaber colors were wrong on a poster for Revenge of the Jedi. Luke is holding a red blade while Vader has a blue one. Whereas the title was not a mistake at the time, the lightsaber colors were.
As for the posters, later prints did change over to green, to correct not quite a mistake but a mismatch with the post-production decision. We can see the green lightsaber in the image provided with this discussion board about the Japanese version of the Return poster. This fact was corroborated by this Star Wars article about movie poster designs specifically for Japan.
Blue Lightsabers on Posters
On most of the posters for Return of the Jedi, a blue lightsaber was used because the switch to green came after the posters had been printed and distributed. Star Wars creators may have also retained the blue color afterward to help keep it associated with Luke, but we do have evidence that Luke’s green blade was included in some of the later poster versions.