20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
4. George Lucas Gave Ewan McGregor & Liam Neeson 10 Minutes To Choose Lightsabers
To Lucas' minor credit, he did seem to give the bigger stars of the prequels a certain amount of input with regard to their characters, notably granting Samuel L. Jackson's request for his Mace Windu to have a distinctive purple lightsaber.
The same was also true for Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson, who were taken to a private room just before shooting began, and presented with a locked box from which were produced 20 different lightsaber hilts.
Lucas allowed them to pick their own hilts, yet in order to keep the choice instinctual, he only gave them a total of ten minutes to think about it.
Granted, you can argue that Lucas is probably putting too much thought into the wrong thing here, but even so, it was a nice gesture to the actors - who, let's face it, needed to firmly grasp any practical tether they could find to this world.