CT Why did the Emperor call the Lightsaber a Jedi's Weapon?

This still bothers me a bit.

I know Lucas never had an inkling about a Sith Order at the time. To him, and everyone else, Vader and Palpatine were simply users of the Dark Side, instead of the Light Side like Jedi.

Since Vader was a Fallen Jedi, he still used a Lightsaber. Did he then intend, at the time, that the Emperor and his ilk (dark siders) never used Lightsabers simply because unlike Jedi they weren't trained in it? That they used Sith Lightning and stuff like that?

Was this ever officially explained? (by official I mean Lucas himself, not some EU hack)

 

The second draft of Star Wars has knights of the Sith and Lord Darth Vader as a right hand to the "Master of the Sith".
In the third draft, the Jedi Knight have been hunted down by the Dark Lords of the Sith. Darth Vader is one of these Sith Lords. That remained through the fourth draft. So Vader is not just a fallen Jedi and he and the Emperor are not just the dark siders. The idea of the Sith might have changed over the years but they'd been there from the beginning. I'm not sure about the lightsaber, wasn't the Emperor supposed to have a lightsaber hidden up his sleeve in ROTJ?

 

He sensed Luke's aspirations to become a Jedi Knight and played to him on that. He was trying to convert Luke, after all. The context is given away in the next line: "By now you know your father will never be turned from the dark side. So will it be with you." He was trying to make him think that all the training and his efforts to be a Jedi were futile.

I would add, that in the first edition of this book, it was said that Jedi and Sith used lightsabers, but the most powerful masters of the Jedi and Sith, such as Yoda and Palpatine, were beyond using them. They had grown so strong in the Force that they only relied on their ability to use the force to be their only defense.

 

All this. The idea that "Sith" haven't been hand in hand with Star Wars from the get go is quite wrong. And yeah, Palpatine had a lightsabre up his sleeve in at least one of the ROTJ scripts.

 

I read that Lucas got the idea of the word 'Sith' from some movie or book where they were blood sucking insects or something. But I do not recall if that was after, before or during making the OT. Could someone please give me some original links/quotes on the matter? Thank you.

Scripts change. It is what is in the final movie that matters. In ROTS there is even a fully filmed deleted scene where Shaak Ti is murdered by Grievous as well as a part where Obi and Anakin use Force Speed to cut through the floor, a very cool scene btw. But these two were not in the final cut, so they are not cannon.

So the fact that we don't see Palpatine use a Lightsaber AND that he specifically states that it is a Jedi Weapon does make it appear that the Emperor, and possibly True Sith (i.e. who were never Jedi to begin with) did not use Lightsabers, but used only the Dark Side.

Would love to be proven wrong though.

 

Sith were the insects in Buroough's Barsoom novels. It's also another spelling of sidhe (faeries).

 

I read that Lucas got the idea of the word 'Sith' from some movie or book where they were blood sucking insects or something. But I do not recall if that was after, before or during making the OT. Could someone please give me some original links/quotes on the matter? Thank you.

Not sure about where the word comes from, but it's in the ANH novel, so it actually pre-dates the film by about six months for being publically findable.

Actually, deleted scenes=canon as long as nothing contradicts them. So the bits from ROTS actually happened, outside of Grievous executing Shaak Ti, maybe, as its a video game that shows her getting killed years later

You have to consider authorial intent, too-given that Palpatine is shown wearing a sabre exactly as described in the ROTJ script in a film released 22 years later, it pretty clearly stuck with Lucas, and he's the final word on things like that. There is alot in the ROTS novel about how the Sith have moved beyond lightsabres, but that doesn't preclude their using and carrying them, especially since Sidious does so.

 

Lucas likes to recycle old ideas. Get ready for more in the third trilogy

 

A lightsaber is a Jedi's weapon.

A Sith using a lightsaber doesn't undo that.

 

I think Palpatine was just pushing Luke to get angry.

 

As others have said,

it wasn't that he was calling it a "Jedi weapon" in the sense only Jedi use it, he was mocking Luke carrying it as though it was a rather pointless thing to do.

 

Qui-Gon says Maul was trained in the Jedi Arts even though he's clearly not a Jedi.

 

exactly

 

I was never sure about that line "Trained in the Jedi Arts." I would imagine that he means Light Saber Combat as both Sith and Jedi use the same Forms of combat.

 

"Sith" has existed as a term for a certain group of dark-siders for quite awhile, but the exact definition has changed over time. In the second draft of ANH, if I recall, the term refers to a group of space pirates who happened to have been taught to use the dark side, and subsequently became the Emperor's bodyguards. The Emperor himself doesn't appear to have been intended to be a Sith as of ANH, at least. And the rule of two, as far as I'm aware, didn't exist before the mid-1990s.

I don't know, and I don't think anyone knows, exactly why the line asked about in this thread was written the way it was. Probably it does have a lot to do with Palpatine taunting Luke. And regardless of whether Lucas considered the Emperor to be a Sith at the time of ROTJ, he was never called one until TPM (only Vader was called a Dark Lord of the Sith before that), and as a result it was conceivable for a viewer to conclude that the Emperor was simply an independent dark-side master - one who, like Yoda appeared to be - was beyond the use of a lightsaber. And/or, one could have speculated that perhaps lightsabers were symbols as well as weapons, ones only used by Jedi or Jedi-pretenders. In some of the early drafts of ANH, sabers are not exclusive to Jedi, but audiences wouldn't know that, and it could/did change anyway.

 

Earlier drafts aside, there's another thing to consider - Sith didn't necessarily have to be fallen Jedi. Palps wasn't, for a start (yes, I know he wasn't ever referred to as a Sith in the OT or any official source until the PT came about).

The character we now know as Darth Vader was always a fallen Jedi (previously Darklighter), even prior to the creation of Father Vader, so his use of a lightsaber could have been his own personal choice, due to his background as a Jedi. Had GL included other Sith in stories after SW/ANH, they may well have used blasters, Force lightning, unarmed combat, anything.
That could have been at the heart of Palpatine taunting Luke about his weapon - reminding him that his father was once a Jedi Knight who wielded the great lightsaber, but still fell to the Dark Side. Just because Luke was now an adept with a lightsaber he built himself didn't mean the same thing couldn't happen to him.

 

Yes, the movie is the final say, but something that is canon doesn't have the same weight as something that directly happens onscreen. Many things have become "non-canon" by conflicting sources over time, and I assume that'll only get worse with the new movies. Bottom line: anything's possible.

 

This was just to get a conversation going(and a little bit to intimidate).

 

The Jedi need Lightsabers while the Sith do not.

Example: One Jedi and one Sith, they are standing right in front of each other and ready to fight, but neither of them have lightsabers. The Sith have Force Lightning, Force Choke, and other Force powers. They see the Force as a weapon. What do the Jedi have? They see the Force as a master and a partner. Who will win?

 

The Jedi need Lightsabers while the Sith do not.

Example: One Jedi and one Sith, they are standing right in front of each other and ready to fight, but neither of them have lightsabers. The Sith have Force Lightning, Force Choke, and other Force powers. They see the Force as a weapon. What do the Jedi have? They see the Force as a master and a partner. Who will win?

 

Sorry, about the double post.

 

Yoda was able to deflect just about everything that Dooku sent towards him in Attack of the Clones including Force Lighting. Yoda was also able to deflect falling debris sent his way. Yoda also absorbed a lot of Force energy from Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith. Theoretically speaking he did not need his light saber. There are many lightside Force abilities that Jedi can use that are not explored completely in the films. A variation of light side force lightning would be Electric Judgement.

 

That was Yoda, he was what 900 years old at the time? Yoda was one of the most powerful Jedi to ever exist. I don't believe that Mace and Obi-Wan could of been able to do half of the things Yoda could do and they were the more powerful Jedi in the Order at the time.

 

Yoda and Mace were pretty powerful but Obi-Wan from my point of view was more skillful at investigations and solving mysteries. We get to see a glimpse of that in a New Hope but the Prequel Trilogy explore it more. Obi-Wan knew his limitations but he maximized his skills to the utmost.

 

Do not underestimate the power of Kenobi. Sith Lords ARE his speciality.

But Jedi Masters can theoretically deflect whatever Sith throw at them using the Light Side. Mace chose to use his Lightsaber because that is what he prefers, and also because he wanted to deflect the lightning back at Sidious to hurt him. Yoda used hands alone true, but only when his lightsaber was knocked away. He could not deflect the torrent of Sidious's lightning back at him. And they were mostly evenly matched.

But yes, Sith do have an advantage in using the Force. No doubt about that.