With The Acolyte forging ahead in a new era, taking bold steps to lay out this new era with unfamiliar characters and worlds, one thing showrunner Leslye Headland wanted to secure was the lightsabers and her wish for them to be as swift as they were in the prequel trilogy – but with the built-in light that CGI would usually add afterwards. That was a task for the props department to tackle before filming began.
“I want to use the type of lightsabers that you can actually duel with as opposed to utilizing sticks that you then CGI in later.”
Headland even learnt lessons from the sequel trilogy of Star Wars films, which featured heavier, bulkier lightsabers for its actors to throw down with. “That affected the way Daisy [Ridley] and Adam [Driver] fought because they wanted to have that practical lighting,” Headland explained.
Instead, the showrunner asked the props team “to create lightsabers that could be utilized the way Darth Maul or Qui-Gon Jinn use them, but they also had to light up for the practical light effects”.
Headland added: “I do have to thank the props department for making that happen – it did start with them saying we can’t do that!”
