Although the Internet has worked itself up into a frenzy over a particular Star Wars: The Last Jedi item, it’s possible that it’s not that significant.
Warning: We’re talking the latest in potential Star Wars: The Last Jedi story elements.
Licensed items are basically a given for Star Wars, and they were even before Force Friday became a thing with The Force Awakens back in 2015. So are tie-ins. Lately, both our sister site Dork Side of the Force and CBR have both picked up on an image from a certain piece of merchandise for The Last Jedi, where Luke Skywalker happens to have an ignited lightsaber.
As Dork Side reminds us, the blue lightsaber is a family heirloom at this point, but both it and CBR seem to think this could be a huge leak of information when really … it might not be.
Think about it. The second trailer shows us that Luke takes the lightsaber from Rey, or at least wraps both of his hands around it. Is it really much of a stretch to imagine he actually ignites it afterwards? It’d be a nice callback to A New Hope, where Luke picks up his father’s weapon and turns it on for the first time; now, after originally losing it in Cloud City, it’s come back to him after so long. That’d make for a seriously emotional moment to presumably hit close to the start of The Last Jedi.
(Not that we’re expecting this, but if Luke says something about “an elegant weapon for a more civilized age,” we might lose it in the theater right then and there and possibly never get it back for the rest of the movie.)
CBR speculates that this is meant to try and distract fans, but we’re taking the truth-in-the-middle approach to it. Additionally, you can literally spot Rey also holding presumably the blue lightsaber on the reverse side of the glass!
Next: 3 questions for The Last Jedi
In short, we’re not worried too much about what it could possibly mean. For now, it just seems like a way to play on Star Wars‘ fans feelings.