It Took Star Wars Three Movies To Figure Out How To Use Kylo Ren’s Unique Lightsaber

While many elements of Star Wars: The Force Awakens garnered criticism from a sizable chunk of its audience, one particularly popular gripe, and one that would remain a topic of derision throughout the Sequel Trilogy‘s run, was Kylo Ren‘s lightsaber. The violent crimson of a Sith’s lightsaber was apparently not enough of a statement for Kylo (who wasn’t really a proper Sith anyway), as his saber forgoes the weapon’s standard streamlined hilt in favor of a crossguard reminiscent of High- to Late-Medieval European swords from our very own Earth. Adding even further absurdity, rather than being made of the same metal as the hilt, the quillons (sides) of the crossguard were themselves miniature lightsaber blades, tapering to sharp points after only a few inches. However, while this latest attempt to introduce unexpected design elements to Star Wars‘ iconic weapon was widely mocked by general audiences, Kylo’s crossguarded lightsaber was not without context, both in-universe and out of it.

Along with taking heavy inspiration from real-life history, this lightsaber design was explained in The Force Awakens‘ companion materials as a matter of necessity, while other in-universe implications of its form combined with real-life weapons history to create a saber that speaks volumes about the values, flaws and insecurities of its owner. The design itself, however, was still deeply unfamiliar within the existing understandings of the rules and limitations in lightsaber combat, and it took until The Rise Of Skywalker, the final movie of the Sequel Trilogy, for the writers and choreographers of Star Wars to begin to utilize the full range of possibility allowed by what is effectively a 3-bladed lightsaber. This article explores the canonical, historical, practical, and character-based origins of Kylo Ren’s now infamous crossguarded lightsaber, and how the choreography of the films eventually shifted to accommodate this new style of weapon.

The Design of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber has basis in Star Wars lore, real-world history, and in-universe function

The basic form of lightsaber construction varies little across the many tales and sects of Star Wars canon. Whether the blade is single or dual, the hilt ornately decorated or simple, a lightsaber always consists of a Kyber Crystal which, when connected to a simple power source (essentially a battery), produces an intense beam of energy which is then focused through a series of focusing crystals and mechanical regulation fields to become the blade of the lightsaber. Kylo’s lightsaber, which some Star Wars literature cites as being made using a much older saber design, differs from the canon standard in that the crystal itself is placed higher up in the hilt, with the focusing crystals that would normally stack above it to concentrate the energy beam being instead placed around it in order to split the beam into three (and also allowing more space in the lower hilt to be taken up by power cells, giving more raw force, no pun intended, to the blade). The effect created is that of a crossguard, a component of a sword or dagger popular in our world from roughly 200-1600 ce and consisting of a bar of rigid material placed between the hilt and blade of a weapon, to protect the wielder’s hands from the blade of their enemy.

When placed alongside the concept of lightsabers, the crossguard becomes a problematic addition. Given that lightsabers can cut through almost anything, including the hilts of other sabers, a crossguard made from the same material as the hilt, while it may visually seem to protect the wielder’s hands, would actually be a source of potential danger— a strike from an attacker’s saber would slice through the crossguard before meeting the wrist of the defender, causing what would otherwise be an automatically-cauterized cut (or amputation) to be riddled with shrapnel and molten metal from the destroyed guard.

Therefore, unless a material such as the lightsaber-resistant, Mandolorian-exclusive metal Beskar could be found for the purpose, the only way for a lightsaber to have a functional crossguard is for that guard to be made of the same energy as the main blade, this being able to deflect strikes from other sabers easily. However, this itself creates another dilemma, as the nature of lightsaber blades now makes the crossguard blades, or ‘Quillons’ (a real-life archaic term for the sides of the crossguard) a threat to the hands and torso of the wielder, as well as creating a deterrent against the wielder shifting their hands or weight higher on the hilt during combat out of fear of scorching themselves on the quillons.

The Sequel Trilogy’s fight choreography had to adapt to weapon forms and styles unfamiliar to the Star Wars canon

All of these factors in the design of Kylo’s saber serve well to highlight the character’s psyche, focusing archaic forms, short-term self-defense, brute force and maximization of potential damage over skill, efficiency, guaranteed personal safety, and conformity to current convention. However they also create problems for fight choreography, as Kylo is severely limited in his range of movement in terms of both grip position and angle, and the proximity of his saber to his body, while his opponents are also limited in the strikes and tactics most common in lightsaber combat.

The writers and choreographers of Star Wars‘ Sequel Trilogy were faced with the conundrum of writing effective fight scenes with this saber, as well as the additional hurdle that neither Kylo nor Rey, his main opponent, had ever received full Jedi training (and had received, as far as we currently know, no training from any member of the pre-imperial Jedi order), leading to the movie-canon-unprecedented scenario of repeated duels between two fairly unskilled lightsaber fighters. Due to these limits on both sides, Kylo’s fights in the first two Sequel Trilogy films read to many as clunky, slow and badly done.

With few options for functional combat within the rules of Star Wars canon or real-world history (where quillons were never in the form of dual-sided blades for obvious reasons, let alone lasers), the only direction left to go was that of sheer creativity. This option finally produced a long-awaited standout moment for the crossguarded saber in Rise Of Skywalker, as Kylo utilized one of the quillons as a primary weapon, slamming it into the stomach of an opponent until their body weight rested entirely against the saber’s hilt before using that counterweight to slam them downwards— a powerful and devastating move impossible with historically accurate quillons and inconceivable within standard understandings of lightsaber combat.

Check out the move in-action below:

While perhaps too little too late given that Kylo’s saber had already endured two films’ worth of nonstop mockery by fans, this one unprecedented move shows that even a visually strange and logistically limiting Lightsaber design can be utilized to great, unique and unexpected effect if the writers and choreographers are willing to work as far outside the bounds of what a lightsaber is “supposed to be” as the prop designers clearly are.

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