- Warning: There are major spoilers ahead for "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker."
- At the end of "The Rise of Skywalker," Rey shows off a new lightsaber with a yellow-orange hue.
- Insider spoke with four members of the "TROS" visual effects team — Roger Guyett, Neal Scanlan, Patrick Tubach, and Dominic Tuohy — on the Walt Disney Studios lot Monday to learn about the origins of Rey's new lightsaber, which contains a yellow kyber crystal.
- Tests were ran to help decide the color of the blade. They ultimately landed on a yellow hue, representative of optimism.
- Eagle-eyed fans may have noticed the hilt of the saber comes from Rey's staff.
- "J.J. [Abrams] just thought it was logical that she had the staff, and, therefore, the saber should somehow be linked to that," said visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett.
One of the biggest reveals in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," other than Rey's identity, came at its very end when the character revealed she had her own new lightsaber with a distinctive yellow-orange hue.
What color exactly is the lightsaber and how did the visual effects team land on it?
"A fair number of colors have been used in lightsabers. So there was a design challenge there in terms of what color it should be,""TROS" visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett told Insider Monday of the direction given for the lightsaber seen at the movie's very end.
"There was an optimistic kind of quality to that, but we also wanted [Rey] to have a very unique color," he added of coming up with the color we see on screen. "We ran some tests and decided in the end what color it would be."
Is there a specific name to Rey's lightsaber color? We're going with 'yellow optimism.'
"That specific color yellow, if you go too pale — this is getting really in the weeds here — if you go too pale and you make it too light, it's going to look white a lot of times," Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) visual effects supervisor Patrick Tubach said of one factor that helped them land on that precise color. "Colors on film, sometimes they bleed away depending on the exposure and the quality of the light in the scene."
"Making it that more golden yellow gives you that optimistic feeling, and it also allows you to make it supersaturated and still feel like it's in the 'Star Wars' universe," he added.
Yellow sabers aren't anything new to "Star Wars" lore, but they are uncommon. In the past, yellow lightsabers have mostly been limited to Jedi temple guards, who wielded double-bladed sabers.
When asked if they had a specific name for the color, optimism was a word that came up frequently to describe the tone they were going for with the look of Rey's lightsaber.
"We definitely went for things like golden and sun and optimism," said Tubach.
"I think the optimism carried that choice," added Guyett.
"I'm going to paint my house 'yellow optimism,'" joked creature and makeup effects creative supervisor Neal Scanlan.
Rey's lightsaber does include a yellow kyber crystal
"Yeah, it's supposed to be a yellow crystal," said Tubach.
It was not a clear crystal that changed color after chosen by Rey. Neither was it a purified version of a red kyber crystal as Ahsoka Tano did in the past to create her white lightsabers.
Insider thought Rey's saber color may have contained a healed version of Kylo Ren/Ben Solo's cracked red kyber crystal, but it seems that's not the case.
The small detail within Rey's new lightsaber you may have missed: The hilt of her lightsaber comes from her original staff.
"That was the concept," said Guyett of the inspiration behind the hilt of Rey's lightsaber. "The art production design and the art department, we all contribute to the designs of various things... [director] J.J. [Abrams] just thought it was logical that she had the staff, and, therefore, the saber should somehow be linked to that."
In hindsight, when you go back to "The Force Awakens," Rey's staff always looked like it could eventually be transformed into the perfect lightsaber hilt.
"The Rise of Skywalker" is currently in theaters. You can read our review here.
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- 12 clues you may have missed that hinted at Rey's true identity in the 'Star Wars' sequel trilogy
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