We recently learned a little bit more about a lightsaber that will appear in the upcoming “Star Wars: The High Republic” project.
- “The High Republic” is a multi-platform project — which includes comic books and novels — set in a time 200 years before the prequel trilogy.
What’s going on?
StarWars.com released a first look at the lightsaber for Stellan Gios, a Jedi Master during the High Republic era.
Artist Grant Griffin and Disney Publishing illustration manager Jeff R. Thomas developed the lightsaber hilt for Stellan’s weapon.
“When designing Stellan’s lightsaber, I looked at the iconic lightsabers that have already been established,” Thomas told StarWars.com. “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.”
Thomas used Kylo Ren’s cross-saber design, too. It wasn’t an easy design to make happen, but Thomas figured out the right design.
“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,” Thomas told StarWars.com. “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.”
What to expect from the series
Charles Soule — the writer of the series’ kickoff book “Light of the Jedi” — told The Hollywood Reporter that the series will “include bits from literally everyone’s pitches, which is a good thing — from characters to vehicles to creatures, we all were able to contribute our own ideas.”
Soule, one of the co-creators of “The High Republic” told StarWars.com that the series will include the San Tekka clan, which has a direct tie to “The Force Awakens.”
- “The Force Awakens” kicked off with a scene that featured Lor San Tekka, who handed Poe Dameron a map to help find Luke Skywalker. Kylo Ren killed Lor San Tekka after the map was given away, as I wrote about for Deseret.com.