Star Wars: The best moments from The Empire Strikes Back
By Nik Edlund
The Empire Strikes Back best moments: Han Uses Luke’s Lightsaber
It’s not often we see anyone use a lightsaber in a Star Wars film who isn’t a Jedi. In the prequels General Grievous did, and in The Force Awakens, Finn picked up a lightsaber and battled not only a Stromtrooper but Kylo Ren as well.
The first time we ever saw such an instance was in The Empire Strikes Back. When Luke doesn’t come back from his search of the “meteor” Han goes out to look for him. He’s able to come across Luke, with arguably the help of Ben Kenobi, who is passed out in the snow mumbling some crap about the Dagobah system.
Just then, Han’s Tauntuan freezes and dies and he realizes he needs to keep Luke warm while he sets up their shelter or Luke will die too. He grabs Luke’s lightsaber, turns it on, and clumsily wields it to slice the belly open of the fallen beast. Han then delivers that classic line, “And I thought they smelled bad, on the outside!”
This is a great moment where we see Han Solo use a lightsaber, and it is even more ironic after hearing him talk about having a good blaster by his side in A New Hope.