Skip to main content

Iconic ‘Star Wars’ lightsaber began life as a camera flash, cost $15 to build

One of the most iconic props in Hollywood history was actually created from an old piece of photography equipment for about $15. the lightsaber.

YouTube channel DigitalRev recently shared a feature video on the little known history of the well-known prop, and it’s a history that starts in an small photo shop in London.

Recommended Videos

Set director Roger Christian was tasked with finding props for the movie on a limited budget. According to the video interview, Christian said he wanted the items to look like they had a history –that they were used and not something just brought out of the box.

Christian was at a small photography shop in London when he asked the proprietor if he had anything unusual he might use, which is when he brought out a box that likely hadn’t been opened in a decade and pulled out a camera.

But it was what was attached to the camera that caught the set director’s eye — a Graflex three-cell camera flash. Christian bought the flash, and for about $15, adjusted the flash handle and painted it with blue projection material to turn it into what’s now universally known as a light saber.

That first flash handle became Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber. Darth Vader’s was also made from old camera gear. The flash handle wasn’t behind all of the light sabers, including Obi-Wan Kenobi’s, for example. It began life as a balance pipe from a Rolls-Royce jet engine

While the original lightsaber was constructed for pennies compared to modern Hollywood budgets, DigitalRev says Luke’s original lightsaber sold for $250,000, making it one of the most valuable film weapons in history. The flash handle originally picked up for less than $20 now often costs four figures, thanks to demand from fans learning how to build their own variations.

Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
If you have to watch one Star Wars movie this May the 4th, stream this one
Luke looking off into the binary sunset before dying in The Last Jedi.

Every Star Wars fan has a favorite movie, and many Star Wars fans also hate at least one of the entries in one of their favorite franchises. That can make the exercise of choosing the perfect Star Wars movie to watch on May the 4th difficult. For all of the love this fan base has shown to the franchise over the years, it's also a fan base that has strong opinions about why one movie or another is worthy of your time.

This May 4, though, I'd recommend watching Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Almost undoubtedly the most controversial entry in the saga, one that makes some people furious and others jump for joy, The Last Jedi is worthy of your attention, whether you like what it's doing or not. Here are three reasons you should check it out:
Luke gets to live the Jedi legend
Star Wars: The Last Jedi Trailer (Official)

Read more
The 10 best lightsaber duels in Star Wars, ranked
Luke Skywalker lunges towards Darth Vader during their lightsaber fight on Cloud City.

Star Wars has contributed countless indelible moments and images to our popular culture, but if there’s one artifact that is most intrinsic to the Galaxy Far, Far Away, it’s the fantastical weapon of the Jedi Knights, the lightsaber. From the very first time audiences saw Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader cross glowing, humming swords aboard the Death Star in 1977, we’ve been absolutely obsessed, and storytellers across multiple media and nearly half a century have been only too happy to indulge our craving for increasingly elaborate lightsaber duels.
Lightsaber fights come in all shapes and sizes, from emotional one-on-one bouts in live-action to wild animated free-for-alls, and selecting our 10 favorites from the franchise to date was no easy task. There are a lot of metrics by which to judge — the excitement of the action itself, how it’s shot, the story behind it, the use of environment, even the music to which it’s set — but the cream of the crop are those duels that either dominate one category or harmoniously balance each one. Will your favorites make the list? You’ll find we’re full of surprises …

10. The Ronin vs. the Bandit Leader (The Duel - Visions, season 1, episode 1)

Read more
Andor review: Rogue One prequel is slow-burn Star Wars
Diego Luna walks through a scrapyard of ships in a scene from Andor.

Gareth Edwards' Rogue One: A Star Wars Story isn't the most controversial Star Wars movie ever made, but it still inspires plenty of passionate debate among fans about the place it holds in the beloved sci-fi saga. A gritty, standalone war story set in the period just before the events of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, 2016's Rogue One was always a risky bet, but it was one that paid off as it became the third highest-grossing film in the entire franchise.

Now, the studio is doubling down on that bet with Andor, a prequel-of-a-prequel that explores the formative years of Diego Luna's rebel spy Cassian Andor from Rogue One. And much like the film that inspired it, Andor delivers a very different -- but welcome -- Star Wars story with its simmering tale of espionage set in the early days of a galactic rebellion.

Read more