Rise Of Skywalker Concept Art Reveals Unused Design For Dark Rey's Double-Sided Lightsaber
Sorry to break out a cliche, but Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines a "double-edged sword" as "something that has or can have both favorable and unfavorable consequences." Going by this definition, the Disney era of "Star Wars" is the living embodiment of a double-edged sword. It's given us some good moments and bad moments, and now it's given us a glimpse of an unused double-sided lightsaber.
Darth Maul (Ray Park) first brandished the double-sided lightsaber in "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace," but if you remember, the evil version of Rey (Daisy Ridley) had her own red version of one that she unfolded in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker." It happened while Rey was on a fetch quest for the wayfinder, walking among the ruins of the second dreaded Death Star. Her encounter with her Dark Side self was rather fleeting and almost seemed manufactured to serve as a trailer moment, but it harkened back to Luke's vision of a Darth Vader who bore his own face in the cave on the planet Dagobah.
Concept artist Matthew Savage recently took to Instagram to share an alternate design for Dark Rey's "double blade saber," which would have been "constructed from components of Rey's staff." He wrote, "Here's an unused concept for the Dark Rey lightsaber. For this design I was experimenting with using elements of her staff but we ended up using that idea for her hero saber."
The Double Blade Saber as Star Wars Metaphor
Phil Szostak, Lucasfilm's creative art manager and author of the "The Art of Star Wars" book series, tweeted out some larger versions of the images showing Savage's design for the Dark Rey lightsaber. You can see those here:
“Here’s an unused concept for the Dark Rey lightsaber. For this design I was experimenting with using elements of her staff but we ended up using that idea for her hero saber.†– concept artist Matthew Savage #StarWars #TheRiseofSkywalker https://t.co/DAU4da8qjd pic.twitter.com/hb0AaOwZGD
— Phil Szostak (@PhilSzostak) January 8, 2022
It's been over two years since "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" landed in theaters, and opinion remains sharply divided over the way that director J.J. Abrams chose to wrap up the 9-episode Skywalker saga. Since then, the movie side of the "Star Wars" franchise has gone into hibernation, while attention has pivoted to the live-action TV side of things on Disney+. As of this writing, we're two episodes into "The Book of Boba Fett," and reviews have been mostly positive, as they were for the first two seasons of "The Mandalorian" and "Star Wars: Visions" (the latter of which one-upped Dark Rey with a new 8-sided red lightsaber umbrella).
While some of us moviegoers might have been disappointed by "The Rise of Skywalker," it's nothing new for "Star Wars" to go through ups and downs or contend with a fan backlash. This happened with the prequels and now it's happened again with the sequels. You could even say it happens on an episode-by-episode basis sometimes with the Disney+ shows. In the end, you take the good with the bad, and in that respect, the metaphor of a double-edged sword — or laser sword — seems especially applicable to "Star Wars."