Elstree Props "Original" ROTJ Lightsaber

The scene,I am now reliably told,was indeed filmed and even edited apparently.However that does NOT make this piece authentic.In my opinion this piece is nothing more than a very nice replica.That is just my opinion and everyone has to make their own mind up however I cannot urge enough caution when dealing with Elstree Props.Two different sabers on two different sites,questionable reputation and a "guarantee of no further resale" together with provenance that is dubious at best and laughable at worst.
This is now the THIRD "original" Luke ROTJ saber that Elstree have sold or attempted to sell.Are we really supposed to believe that that many sabers got away from the LFL archives?
 
Maybe because it was never actually filmed.

So what? Lucas could have easily refilmed it. Didn't Scott refilm scenes using joanna Cassidy in his rerelease of Blade Runner? C'mon, this scene would have provided some continuity between the scenes with Jabba. If it was filmed, I wonder if we will ever see it!
 
I'm sure they probably didn't edit that scene into the final because it didn't keep the flow of the film going. At that time, there were not many films that were of long durations in the theaters either. It's all about money. Shorter films make more showings per day... That's why you get the director's cut.
 
Including the scene would have ruined the whole surprise with R2 ejecting the lightsaber. I think they did the right decision not to include the scene.

Same with the Jabba scene in ANH-SE - it ruins the effect of the "What a piece of junk" scene, not to mention making Jabba himself something of a mystery until ROTJ.
 
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I posted some additional thoughts about this on the OPB:

Elstree Props Return of the Jedi Lightsaber Auction - Update 2

Does anyone here have any idea how many original Luke-style Return of the Jedi lightsabers Lucasfilm has in their archive?

I know there are two in the "From Star Wars to Indiana Jones" book (pictured in my update article). There is the one loaned to NASA currently (which I think is the second of those two in that book). I took a photo of one at the Art of Star Wars exhibit in San Francisco in '95, but I can't seem to find my scans (if anyone here happened to have saved them, please contact me). IIRC, that one had the Graflex band on it as well.

Anyway, I'd be interested to learn how many originals are truly "out there", and I think the RPF is the best resource for ferreting out that information...

Thanks,

Jason
 
When in doubt! The one that went to NASA is the bottom of the 2 pics in the SW IJ book. It's called "Kenobi (ANH) / Skywalker (ROTJ) (shared stunt version)".There was a hero also and a resin copy of the hero was in the MOM Exhibit as I recall. Then there's the V2 which MR replicated.
http://www.partsofsw.com/item.htm

The ones in the elstree auction are different from all the previous sabers I mentioned.

FB
 
Doh! My memory told me is was the v2. Thanks for pointing that out.

What I should more clearly have said was that there was only 1 metal luke rotj hero saber made specifically for rotj, and the other two metal sabers were reused from anh.
 
lightsaber.jpg


So what? Lucas could have easily refilmed it. Didn't Scott refilm scenes using joanna Cassidy in his rerelease of Blade Runner? C'mon, this scene would have provided some continuity between the scenes with Jabba. If it was filmed, I wonder if we will ever see it!

Agreed - it would be awesome to see it, if it even exists.
 
Doh! My memory told me is was the v2. Thanks for pointing that out.

What I should more clearly have said was that there was only 1 metal luke rotj hero saber made specifically for rotj, and the other two metal sabers were reused from anh.

There was also at least one metal stunt made for ROTJ - which seems to actually be the "Hero" we see in Vader's hands. The nicer one with the slide open control box does not seem to appear in the movie.

I don't think the Elstree ROTJ saber is legit. Definitely not if they filmed the scene- the it would have been delivered to Lucas and no made it back to Elstree.

V2 and shared stunt are two separate sabers that came from the same mold.
 
Thanks for the info, Chris.

I took another look at your site (haven't reviewed it since this all came up) and I'm trying to wrap my head around the different ROTJ sabers used/seen in the film. I put together the following - please let me know if I've got anything wrong, or if anything is missing. Also, is the second "shared" saber in the Lucasfilm Archives, to your knowledge?

ROTJ-Full-Lightsaber-Comparison-ver-1.jpg


I didn't realize, or forgot, that they reused ANH sabers for ROTJ... I think that makes the Elstree pieces a bit more questionable. Also, the "ribbed" part of the sabers (above the control boxes) look much wider on the Elstree sabers to me - any thoughts?

Also, do I remember someone having on eBay a year or more back a wooden ROTJ saber, or something odd like that?

Thanks for the insights and analysis...

Jason
 
I believe the second from top is a resin cast of the Hero and not the hero.

The 3,4,5 and 6 are usually called the Shared Stunt. It was the one that went to NASA.

The 3rd from bottom is usually called the V2.

FB
 
Also, do I remember someone having on eBay a year or more back a wooden ROTJ saber, or something odd like that?

I remember that. It was being sold by a private collector. I believe it was discovered to be a master for copies that were made on a lathe back in ANH.
 
There was also at least one metal stunt made for ROTJ - which seems to actually be the "Hero" we see in Vader's hands. The nicer one with the slide open control box does not seem to appear in the movie.

I don't think the Elstree ROTJ saber is legit. Definitely not if they filmed the scene- the it would have been delivered to Lucas and no made it back to Elstree.

V2 and shared stunt are two separate sabers that came from the same mold.


The only problem I see with believeing that the MOM sliding box Luke ROTJ lightsaber was not used in the Vader "I see you have constructed" scene is that the grip width variation, the pommel cube assymatry, and the placement of the tri-ring hole in the pommel of the lightsaber used in that scene seems to match exactly with lightsaber shown at MOM.

Now it is possible that there were in fact 2 lightsabers and that they matched each other in these details, but that would mean that these particular ideocyncracies on the Luke ROTJ MOM saber (the grip irregularity, the pommel assymetry, and the placement of the hole in the pommel) were deliberate choices that the machinist consously made when producing the Luke ROTJ prop, and I have difficulty believeing that.

I think it is more liekely that the saber shown in the "I see you have contructed" scene and the metal hero shown at MOM are exactly the same piece and that the differences in the control box reflect, not different props, but some sort of damage or modification made to the control box.

I think that this idea is particularly compelling in that the dark grey rails that exist on the MOM saber (which do not on the "I see you have contructed saber") appear to have been damaged and repaired at some point (the rail on the "non arrow" side is misaligned when comapred to the resin stunt).

my .02

Dan
 
Tom Spina had saved the images from the "wood" eBay auction I remembered, and posted on the MPF (more high res images there):

eBay-Wood-&-Metal-ROTJ-Lightsaber.jpg


Tom remembers one being an unfinished metal and one being a wood master, which is how I recall them being marketed. Of course, no one can vouch for the authenticity of the pieces, but a point of reference none the less.

Tom's records show this auction being circa January 2003...

Jason
 
The wooden one was the master for the "shared stunt" and the "V2".

The metal cast also in the auction is from the wooden master as well - an unused production casting.
I emailed with the seller at the time. He worked on ANH with John Stears. The pieces are real.
 
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