Star Wars theory: Are lightsaber duels done?

After Star Wars: The Last Jedi, could this franchise be done with lightsaber battles? Spoilers are ahead.

Although there was the pointless casino side story in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, another underlying piece of this movie raised a question: are these new movies getting rid of lightsaber fights?

Disney is making more Star Wars episodes and spin-off until the end of time and the movies we had so far ranked well in the franchise. However, these films differ from what traditional fans are used to, with the filmmakers slowly progressing new ideas and story elements into the series. Not only were iconic movie characters, like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, written off, but other Star Wars traditions started to swindle out of existence.

The most recent installment, Star Was: The Last Jedi, is becoming famous for many things, including the first Episode without a lightsaber duel, between a hero and villain. We do get an awesome fight scene, with Rey and Kylo Ren working together against Snoke’s guards (after Snoke kicks the bucket), but it isn’t a lightsaber battle. Near the end of the film we see Kylo and Luke (force projection) ignite their lightsabers, but that also wasn’t a lightsaber duel, as it was revealed to just be a fake out. Especially since Luke doesn’t even take a swing.

In Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, there were no Jedi characters and therefore no lightsaber duels. The only scene we get in that movie that involves a lightsaber was when Darth Vader slaughtered the rebels in the hallway, who only had blasters, so obviously it didn’t count. I didn’t expect a lightsaber fight in this movie, but the fact that this film and The Last Jedi missed these iconic scenes is eye-opening. The last time audiences actually saw a lightsaber duel was in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, between Kylo Ren and Rey and Finn for about a minute.

But, that movie was in 2015, and we’ve had two Star Wars films since, with having no lightsaber fights in common. Will this continue?

Think about what the next scheduled movie is on the Star Wars slate, in May 2018 we will be getting a spin-off film directed by Ron Howard called Solo: A Star Wars Story. Not much is known about this movie yet, but it can be implied that it’s the story of a young Han Solo in between the events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: A New Hope (and Rogue One maybe).

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Do we really think we’ll see a lightsaber fight in a movie where the main character admits in other films that he doesn’t believe in the force or Jedi? That would be three Star Wars movies in a row without a lightsaber duel. It would be a disappointment if they stopped adding these sequences into the new stories.