Through the years, one of the hallmarks of Star Wars is repetition, whether it's Death Stars, catchphrases, family conflicts, or loss - particularly when it comes to an appendage. Another reoccurring event from that galaxy far, far away is the loss of lightsabers. While Luke's lost saber from The Empire Strikes Back was integral to Disney's sequel trilogy, The Book of Boba Fett has now revisited another lost saber belonging to Yoda.
While audiences never saw Yoda wield a lightsaber in the original trilogy, that all changed in the prequel films where he first used his green saber on-screen in a fight against Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones.
Warning - This article contains spoilers for "Chapter 6" of The Book of Boba Fett.
In "Chapter 6" of The Book of Boba Fett, Yoda's lightsaber appears in live-action once again. However, the mere existence of this saber at this point in the Star Wars timeline is surprising and may have retconned a canon event that followed Order 66.
How The Book of Boba Fett Retconned Yoda's Lightsaber
Attack of the Clones may have been the first time Yoda used his saber on-screen, but it wasn't the last.
In Revenge of the Sith, Yoda ignited his lightsaber once again, but this time it was in Coruscant's Senate building against Darth Sidious. However, Yoda ended up dropping the saber when Sidious attacked him with Force lightning.
According to Legends and the 2016 book, Star Wars: Complete Locations, Yoda later recovered his fallen lightsaber off-screen and kept the weapon safely stored in a box on Dagobah.
While this would explain how it returned in The Book of Boba Fett, on the other hand, the Star Wars: Darth Vader comics from 2017 actually made the destruction of Yoda's saber canon.
In the comic, Mas Amedda - the Vice-Chair of the Galactic Senate to Sheev Palpatine - presented the lightsabers of the fallen Jedi, including Yoda's, to the people of Coruscant before incinerating them in a public display.
However, in the recently released "Chapter 6" of The Book of Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker tells Grogu about Master Yoda before presenting him with the choice of Yoda's pint-sized, green-bladed lightsaber and a future as a Jedi or Mando's gift of beskar chainmail.
While fans don't yet know which path Grogu will choose, the fact that Yoda's small, green saber still exists is surprising and appears to have retconned the Darth Vader comics.
From a Certain Point of Star Wars View
Up until "Chapter 6," The Book of Boba Fett appeared to be paying homage to Star Wars comics by introducing Black Krrsantan and his story to live-action. This is why the appearance of Yoda's saber and the dismissal of the Darth Vader comics plot point in the show were so surprising.
However, both stories may be true, depending on a fan's point of view.
When Lucasfilm writers Charles Soule and Matt Martin were asked about the discrepancy between the saber's status in the 2016 book compared to the 2017 comic, both theorized that Yoda likely had more than one saber considering his age.
If this is to be believed, then the lightsaber Luke presented to Grogu was, in fact, Yoda's, but not necessarily the same one audiences saw in the prequel trilogy.
In fact, Matt Martin said as much in a tweet from 2019 which read, "It's not an error though, it was clear from RotS that he didn’t leave Coruscant with that saber."
Still, this isn't entirely clear, especially since fans don't know all that happened to Yoda between the events of Revenge of the Sith and The Empire Strikes Back and whether he even needed to build a new lightsaber.
Perhaps, just like the tale of how Maz Kanata recovered Luke's lost saber, the facts behind Yoda's are yet another "good question for another time?"
New episodes of The Book of Boba Fett debut on Wednesdays, exclusively on Disney+.
