10 Awesome Star Wars Ideas That Nearly Happened

One of the major plotholes coming out of J.J. Abrams' reviving of the Skywalker Saga with The Force Awakens centred around exactly how the wise pirate queen Maz Kanata got her hands on the most sacred lightsaber in the galaxy.

Instead of spending a little extra screen-time on what the blade had been up to in the time between being attached to a severed Luke Skywalker's hand in The Empire Strikes Back and Rey discovering the weapon, Abrams simply moved on with the action with his fingers in his ears.

Originally, however, the film's since-deleted opening sequence would've actually provided fans with the missing pieces of the weapon's journey, with Skywalker's chopped mitt floating through space before burning to a crisp upon entering the stratosphere of an unnamed planet, according to a Mark Hamill fact check on Twitter.

Fact Check: TRUEAs my hand hurtled through the stratosphere, the flesh & bone burn away & the lightsaber impales the surface of an unnamed planet. Just imagine: Had this sequence been retained, I would've had bookended cameos, plus TWICE the screen time! #UltraTrivialTrivia ? https://t.co/svXh9Xhhk9

— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) October 8, 2021

It may have made for a bit of a grisly opening shot after a decade away from big screen Star Wars live action, but it would've at least explained in a rather graphic way how Kanata potentially obtained the blue sabre.