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We see that lightsabers can create considerable explosions when Luke's is Force-pulled in half in the throne room fight in The Last Jedi, but when Anakin's is chopped in half on the conveyor belt in the Battle Droid Foundry on Geonosis in Attack of the Clones, it just fizzles.

Is there a good reason to expect that these two actions would have different effects on lightsabers, or that these two lightsabers would respond differently to having their hilts split in half?

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    Note that both of these lightsabers were made by Anakin. – Robert Columbia Jul 14 '19 at 15:55
  • @RobertColumbia I believe that Luke's sabre that was destroyed in the throne room was actually made by Luke. The sabre Luke has in ANH and ESB that Obi-Wan passed down to him from Anakin was lost/destroyed on Bespin when Vader cut off Luke's hand and it fell along with his sabre into the clouds. In between ESB and RotJ Luke builds his own sabre under Yoda's guidance, which is then passed on to Rey and destroyed in the throne room. At least that's the best of my recollection. – airshanemode Jul 14 '19 at 15:59
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    What color lightsaber did Luke make? What color is the one destroyed in the throne room? – Robert Columbia Jul 14 '19 at 16:01
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    Good point - the saber that Luke inherited was blue, the one he made was green, and the one destroyed in the throne room was... blue. Does that mean that Luke's original (inherited from Anakin) saber was somehow recovered from the clouds on Bespin? I just checked and you're right, Maz Kanata says "That lightsaber was Luke's. And his father's before him," when Rey discovers the saber in The Force Awakens. – airshanemode Jul 14 '19 at 16:15
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    @RobertColumbia to follow up, I guess there's some legends material regarding it being recovered from Bespin and passed around, though all I can find in canon is that it somehow pops up again in Maz Kanata's possession years later without explanation. I suppose it's possible that Maz lies and it isn't Luke's original inherited saber, but seems like you're probably right. Either way it's not the one Luke built himself as I previously incorrectly believed. – airshanemode Jul 14 '19 at 16:30
  • Luke made a new lightsaber at the start of RotJ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ayT0EZwbks The scene got chopped for timing reasons. – Valorum Jul 14 '19 at 18:42
  • @Valorum well, given my understanding from your answer here https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/80098/118617 it seems like deleted scenes aren't canon anymore and have been moved to legends status. So it's technically correct to say he builds it between ESB and RotJ ;-) Nitpicks aside, that's a cool scene, I hadn't seen that before and I've always assumed he'd built the lightsaber on Dagobah with Yoda. – airshanemode Jul 14 '19 at 19:11

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The lightsaber destroyed by Rey and Kylo had its 'kyber crystal' broken, releasing the power within.

Until, finally, the crystal sheared apart, its unleashed energy tearing the lightsaber’s housing in half and filling the throne room with a flash of brilliant, blinding white.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Expanded Edition

By comparison Anakin's lightsaber, assuming it was constructed in the same fashion as Luke's, was chopped in half by the cutter above the place where the kyber crystal is stored, across the field energisers. This evidently doesn't result in an explosion.

enter image description here
Images courtesy of Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary and Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

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  • The new lore hurts my brain so much... I know this is right as of now, but this sounds so wrong compared to the old lore. – Nyakouai Jul 15 '19 at 07:26
  • @Nyakouai I'm not sure what you mean by "new lore". Lightsaber Crystals have been around for around a decade before the Disney acquisition in the expanded universe (now Legends). I believe they were even referenced in the 1996 Shadows of the Empire novel. – Nzall Jul 15 '19 at 08:10
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    @Nzall Before, the cristal used to be the focus of the blade, the rest being a lense and a battery. (The main components are described in the "Young Jedis" serie where Luke teach the new generation of Jedis, including Jacen and Jaina Solo). They also mention the Kyber cristals as being excellent and highly sought focus, but it was not power source. First time I heard about a kyber crystal being a power source was in Rogue One, when they say it's the fuel of the Death Star's superlaser... which irks me, as it make less sense than just being ray focus. – Nyakouai Jul 15 '19 at 08:15
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    The Kyber crystals were really not brought up that much before the new stuff. That they have such power would have made them much more prevalent in the lore if you think about it, what with being able to be used for superweapons and stuff. – Lassi Kinnunen Jul 15 '19 at 09:12
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    From the cross-sectional diagram, it looks like long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, they used standard color-coded resistors developed by the Radio Manufacturer's Association in 1920 on Earth. – forest Jul 15 '19 at 09:43
  • @forest The Radio Manufacturer's Association told you that they developed it. The truth is, that’s the universal standard code. – Holger Jul 15 '19 at 10:58
  • @Nyakouai I interpreted that to mean that kyber crystals make the Death Star superlaser work rather than literally fueling it. To be fair Disney's lore changes, this one works. Taking the traditional, almost zen practice of constructing a lightsaber - that "elegant weapon for a more civilised age" that is such a symbol of the Jedi - and use the principles behind it to develop a weapon of mass destruction and terror... That's a very Sith move. Plus, a dash of Force mysticism mixed in with the science explains why nobody else built one, which is harder to explain if it's just a very big laser. – anaximander Jul 15 '19 at 11:40