Star Wars: The Force Awakens set up a lot of mysteries that had fans speculating for years on the answers. Who was the mysterious Supreme Leader Snoke? Why was Luke Skywalker missing? Who are Rey’s parents? All those questions were answered, though it’s safe to say fans wish they’d have remained a mystery after The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.
There’s one biggie that still remains completely unanswered: How did Anakin’s lightsaber end up at Maz Kanata’s bar? As per the original trilogy, this was last used by Luke in his battle with Darth Vader on Cloud City, plunging into an abyss at the conclusion of the scrap (along with Luke’s hand). How did Maz get her hands on it? She promised she would reveal all, but never did.
Knowledgeable fans know that Star Wars did somewhat attempt to answer this in the comics. 2020’s Star Wars #4 showed Luke returning to Cloud City after The Empire Strikes Back to search for it, which he does in a pretty logical way by heading to the lcoal garbage dumps, rolling up his sleeves, and sifting through the trash.
But this doesn’t explain how it ended up with Maz, though perhaps the Ugnaught trash dealers sold it on for Maz to spot in a junk store and recognize its provenance.
Or maybe we could look to a very different franchise for answers?
Or maybe they just got lazy:
Is this just another example of nostalgia bait?
We suspect that one day we will get the answers to this question, as Lucasfilm can’t resist returning to the original trilogy era to tell new stories. For now, we’re with the fans who conclude that J.J. Abrams just thought it’d be cool to have the original blue lightsaber back, and figured someone else would work out how it got there.