To me, he was saying “I don’t need this anymore.” He’s grown past it.
"You’re weapons, you will not need them."
Otherwise he just threw it to look cool. And that’s silly.It’s not the biggest deal, and certainly a minor thing in the list of fixes Jedi needs.
Also, this is a fairly simple thing to fix, so if I’m alone on this I can do it for myself I suppose.
Interesting take on his motives though to me they seem pretty illogical and disconnected from what actually happens on screen. It does kinda make sense now with your view on him collecting his saber before leaving but I still wholey disagree with it.
Here is the scene: https://youtu.be/PqaiKmm8gsY
Emp: walking down the stairs “cackle Goood…cackle. Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfil your destiny and take your father’s place at my side”
Luke: sees the potential truth in the Emp’s words, having used his anger to defeat Vader and now can see a symbolic replacement of Vader already in Vader’s now missing mechanical right hand while Luke clenches his own in realisation he was already starting down that path. He had been warned numerous times about the dark side, never thinking he may actually be susceptible to its sinister lure and this snaps him out of the moment, realising he is being manipulated and forcibly reasserts his inner calm, remembering who he is - a Jedi. He says “Never.” as he turns around, turning his lightsaber off and defiantly throwing it away as he stands tall and walks without fear towards the Emp. “I’ll never turn to the dark side.” he says, preferring to die a Jedi than live on as a Sith pawn as all he holds dear is destroyed. “You failed your highness, I am a Jedi, like my father before me”. He waits, to see what fate now holds for him, as a Jedi…
Emp: “So be it…Jedi” SCRRCCHHHH! 😛
Probably didn’t need to play out that entire scene but no where in there do I see or feel anything about growing past the need for his lightsaber and I can’t make any sense of that in context to the scene. It’s not like he thinks upon defeating Vader that he’s ascended to a higher level and could fight the Emp without his saber like Yoda does in the PT. To me, his action is in direct relation to what he says at the time - “Never”
True if he picked it up again while the Emp was still alive then on both accounts it was a worthless guesture, but him retrieving it afterwards does not take away at all from the scene I described above.
.Val