I had heard tales of people crying when they built their lightsabers, but I never expected to be one of them. As much as I love Star Wars, I don’t consider it to be some core portion of my identity. I’ve been a long-time fan, but I don’t harbor some nostalgia for the “good ol’ days.” And I have no delusions about the age range of the franchise’s target demographic.
But there I was, 37 years old, blubbering with a group of strangers at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
TL;DR? Watch the video!
Some History
My wife and I had been working towards our trip to Disney World for ten years. During that time, we’d finished college and had our second child. We went from part-time jobs working in retail, coffee shops, and video stores to full-time jobs in the fields in which we studied. Ten years full of garage sales, side hustles, and pinching pennies.
And then, just when we had finally scraped together enough money to have the all-out, family trip of a lifetime… the pandemic hit. The entire world shut down – even The Most Magical Place on Earth.
So we postponed the trip. Twice, actually.
The third time was the charm though, and once we felt it was safe enough, we began planning our trip. After all that time – the work, the waiting – I found myself with the opportunity to visit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge on November 16th, 2021 – my 37th birthday.
It was if The Force itself was calling out to me. And who was I to ignore the will of The Force?
Now, I am notoriously tight with money, especially if I’m spending it on myself. So if I was seriously going to treat myself to a $220 lightsaber – the equivalent of the first car payment I ever made on my 2001 Pontiac Grand Prix – I had to make sure it was worth it.
I needed to know exactly what I was getting. I wanted to know my options for hilts, and what each one of them meant. I needed to know what colors of Kyber crystals would be available, and if I could swap them out. Most importantly, I wanted to know if anyone who booked a lightsaber build ended up with buyer’s remorse.
I went down a rabbit hole of blog posts by various Disney die-hards, but it was watching the YouTube videos that finally sold me. Yes, you walk out of Savi’s Workshop with an official Star Wars lightsaber. But you can find all types of lightsabers in various corners of the internet, with arguably higher quality, for nearly half the cost. So what makes the Galaxy’s Edge lightsaber build worth such a steep price tag?
What you’re really buying is the experience. You are buying a moment in time where everything terrible about life and society and general existence feels a galaxy away. You’re part of an exclusive ceremony where it truly feels like you are becoming a Jedi – becoming one with The Force – like so many legends before you. So I decided, just this once, I was going to get off my wallet.
At 6:00 a.m. exactly sixty days before my birthday, I booked my reservation to Savi’s Workshop.
Batuu East
It can’t be undersold just how much Galaxy’s Edge doesn’t feel like anywhere else in Disney World. Nor should it. Thousands of people went to painstaking lengths to turn a massive fourteen acres – the largest expansion in the park’s history – into a fully immersive experience. Every nook and cranny has a story behind it, from the laser marks still etched in the stone after the entrance was carved, to the tracks in the ground left by a certain astromech droid.
Cast members greet you with unique phrases native to Batuu, the fictional planet on which Galaxy’s Edge is set. Most shops and restaurants don’t even have signs written in English – they’re designated by unique symbols or written in the in-universe language of Aurebesh. Going to Galaxy’s Edge feels like you’ve left the real world behind for a galaxy far, far away.
If it weren’t for the humidity, you’d forget you were in Florida.
Could it have just been nostalgia?
I’m sure for some people, a lot of their emotions are tied to nostalgia. Johannes Hofer, the Swiss medical student who originally coined the term, described it as a “neurological disease of essentially demonic cause.” A bit dramatic, but I understand where he was coming from. If you want to look at it as glass-half-empty, nostalgia can impede progress. It makes us dwell in the past, romanticizing times long gone instead of appreciating the now or fixing the world for a brighter tomorrow.
As a little kid, I never saw the Star Wars films from start to finish. Honestly, I think my only exposure to the original trilogy was from The Muppet Babies. But it’s part of pop culture, so I knew all the beats. Luke is Vader’s son. Leia is Luke’s sister. I knew the Death Star, the Millenium Falcon, the Ewoks. I think I was thirteen when I first really got into Star Wars.
It was the late ‘90s, and the Special Editions were being released in theaters. These were updated versions of the original films, using the technology of the day to improve special effects, clean up the presentation, and in some cases, restore previously deleted scenes.
By the time the prequels came out, I was waiting hours in line for midnight screenings and spending Saturday nights playing “Star Wars Trivial Pursuit” in my friend’s basement. Good times, but not exactly where I would go if I had access to a time machine (or to stay on theme, The World Between Worlds.)
So if it wasn’t nostalgia, then what was it? What made the tears swell in my eyes at the sound of John Williams’ iconic score? What was it that made me so verklempt when a Disney World cast member with a faux-British accent rattled off names such as Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Luke Skywalker?
Power & Control
I ended up choosing the Power and Control hilt, with a green kyber crystal. The Galaxy’s Edge lightsabers are actually a lot beefier than I was expecting, the hilt alone weighs at least two pounds. They’re definitely not the best sabers to purchase if you’re looking for something for dueling or doing tricks, but considering I just wanted something to look cool over my desk, I have no regrets. Power and Control is technically a Sith hilt, so I assume most people pair it with a red kyber crystal. However, I wanted to do something unique and create a saber that represented balance within The Force. Or that’s what I tell people. I really just chose Power & Control because it looked sick.
I also bought an additional red kyber crystal, just in case I ever felt that pull from The Dark Side. Or that’s what I tell people. I really just chose Power & Control because it looked sick.
Which is actually the perfect segue to the conclusion of this essay, and why I really think I got so emotional when building my lightsaber. I think it’s important to remember what the world was like in November of 2021.
Four years of 45 had left the country the most divided it had been since the Civil War. Policy after policy had rolled back human rights. Policy after policy rolled back protection for the environment. And hundreds of thousands of people were dying from a virus that was supposedly a hoax that would be gone by summer.
Racism had been normalized. Hate crimes were on the rise. Real-world evils like Nazis and The Ku Klux Klan were clawing their way back to power.
And if you think bringing up 45 isn’t relevant to an essay about Star Wars, just remember that his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, literally referred to their “juggernaut campaign” as The Death Star.
The weapon of the bad guys.
Society was crumbling. These were uncertain times. The real world was a scary place. It still kind of is. But I wasn’t in the real world.
I was on Batuu. I was in Star Wars, where the Rebellion, the Resistance – the good guys – can win. Heroes can come from anywhere. Evil tyrants can be defeated. Never tell me the odds, because all it takes is people – all genders, all colors – willing to stand together for what is right. All it takes is a spark.
That is Star Wars – to me at least. Maybe it’s silly, or childish, or naive, to believe that in the real world, where it feels like we are under attack, daily, by overwhelming forces that wish to suppress us, that we can come together, fight back, and make the world a better palace than where we found it.
But one can hope.
ANSPACH, C. K. “Medical Dissertation on Nostalgia by Johannes Hofer, 1688.” Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, 2(6), 376-391. August 1934, https://doi.org/stable/44437799.
BROOKS, DAN. “The Making of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.” Star Wars, 28 February 2019, https://www.starwars.com/news/the-making-of-star-wars-galaxys-edge.
PARSCALE, BRAD [@parscale]. “For nearly three years we have been building a juggernaut campaign (Death Star). It is firing on all cylinders. Data, Digital, TV, Political, Surrogates, Coalitions, etc. In a few days we start pressing FIRE for the first time.” Twitter, 07 May 2020, https://twitter.com/parscale/status/1258388669544759296.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. Justice. https://www.justice.gov/crs/highlights/2020-hate-crimes-statistics. Accessed 21 February 2023.
WILSON, JASON. “White nationalist hate groups have grown 55% in Trump era, report finds.” The Guardian, 18 March 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/white-nationalist-hate-groups-southern-povert y-law-center.