53 Years Later, Star Wars Is Restoring Goofy George Lucas Canon
The pen is mightier than the lazersword.
Like any good sci-fi world, Star Wars is full of lingo. Sure, there’s the Force and the Jedi and the Sith, but all of life’s mundane elements have their own names too. Currency is credits, English is Basic, and coffee is “Caf.” Some of these terms have become commonplace; we have Star Wars to thank for popularizing the term “droid.” But even within the Star Wars universe, there are still terms that sound strange.
In the trailer for the next Star Wars series, Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord, one of these strange phrases is crucial to the title character, but the seemingly out-of-place expression is actually as old as Star Wars itself. Check out the trailer below:
“Our target is a syndicate leader,” the trailer begins. “He is associated with several criminal organizations. And proficient... with a laser sword.”
Normally, you would expect a Star Wars character to use the term “lightsaber,” but “laser sword” is actually appropriate too, especially when characters aren’t familiar with the ins and outs of the Jedi and Sith. For example, Anakin identifies Qui-Gon Jinn’s weapon as a laser sword in The Phantom Menace because he’s just a kid, and his future son Luke uses the phrase in The Last Jedi as a term of derision.
But technically, laser swords (or rather, “lazer swords”) actually predate lightsabers. The term first appeared in a rough draft of A New Hope, and while it was later changed to lightsaber to better match the sci-fi setting, “laser swords” would return in the prequel trilogy. It may sound stranger than lightsaber, but we came very close to Obi-Wan coaching Luke through laser sword training.
While naïve detectives may be hunting down Maul, so are Inquisitors with double-sided red lightsabers.
If this outdated term is only used by those unfamiliar with the weapon, then it tells us a lot about who’s speaking the lines. Considering the Brazilian lilt, the character is likely Brander Lawson, played by recent Academy Award nominee Wagner Moura. Lawson is a detective during the Imperial Era, but he’s not an Inquisitor. Maul is a crime lord at this point, so his use of a lightsaber would be a surprise to anyone hot on his trail. That said, we already know that Inquisitors will show up eventually, so it’s likely that Brander will be corrected by someone very familiar with the weapon.
While Maul may be a former Sith apprentice, this trailer underlines his pivot to Star Wars’ shady criminal underworld. It’s likely the full series will have a similar tone and be full of, to borrow a phrase from superhero media, street-level conflicts. Someone using the term “laser sword” may sound like a blunder, but it’s really a tell about what kind of characters Shadow Lord will feature.
