Star Wars: 15 Things The Movies Stole From The Expanded Universe

15. Double Bladed Lightsabers First Appeared In A Comic In The Mid-Nineties

The one thing everyone can agree on about The Phantom Menace is that the climactic lightsaber duel is pretty damn cool. Now a big part of it is John Williams masterful Duel Of The Fates and Nick Gillard's intense choreography, but, still, a lot of the awesome factor boils down to Darth Maul's double-bladed lightsaber. If you go back and watch the effective teaser for Episode I, it's that unveiling that gives the most chills.

But the prequel trilogy wasn't the first time we saw one of these blades; that was four years earlier in Tales Of The Jedi, a long-running comic that fleshed out the pre-history of the galaxy millennia before the events with the Skywalkers. The invention of Exar Kun, a former Jedi who turned to the Dark Side (and, thousands of years after his death, caused major problems at Luke's Jedi Academy as a Force ghost), the weapon featured a shorter handle and blue blade than the movie version, but is the clear design predecessor of Maul's (in the canon the weapon caught on with Sith, popping up in several other books and games set in the era).

The debutant issue of the weapon - The Sith Lords #3 - was first published in 1995, just around the time that George Lucas was beginning to bring his plans for The Phantom Menace together.

The Expanded Universe featured all manner of blade variations, although none have made it into the movies proper (there was a cross-guard lightsaber previously, but it was different to Kylo Ren's crucifix, and many expected Rey's weapon in The Force Awakens to wind up being a saber-staff though).