One of the themes of the movie is high technology and romance. The romantic human. One of the human qualities is that romantic quality, that quality of honor and justice, and everything that we equate as human in the way we focus and conduct our lives.
In this particular case, I was looking for a symbol of sort of a more humane, honorable way of being a warrior as opposed to the mechanical, heartless, machine-like approach to killing in battle and war.
One of the main influences here was the samurai ethic and King Arthur and the King Arthur ethic, where you have a very strong set of ethical rules that you live by.
The lightsaber became the symbol of that humane way of conducting your life, even in the worst possible way, which is to protect yourself by killing someone. I wanted something that was romantic, like a sword, but I wanted it to be high-tech and sci-fi to fit into this world. It was out of that that I came up with the idea of a sword that was created out of, you know, a laser that could cut through anything, but can be turned on and off like a flashlight.
