We are much more fragile to lightsaber wounds (remember Qui-Gon Jinn’s death in The Phantom Menace). Many alien species in Star Wars have a different number of organs than humans. Or they have ...

Sure, before Empire, we’d seen Ben Kenobi cut off a thug’s arm in A New Hope — but the raw danger of lightsabers was made clear in that one moment that Vader quickly lobbed off Luke’s hand.

The lightsaber works similarly to a tape measure, with the “blade” made of two spools of semi-transparent flexible plastic ...