Not to derail the thread, but I’d like to share my opinion on the whole lightsaber thing.
I agree with Rian’s sentiments, in theory. Lightsabers aren’t as mythically important as JJ made them out to be, and destroying the Skywalker saber was a great choice that symbolized the whole “letting go of the past” theme. I just don’t like how Rian went the complete opposite direction, treating the saber like a joke. With Luke throwing it over his shoulder, the CGI puffins playing with it, and Luke calling it a “laser sword” later on, it feels like an important element of Star Wars being treated like trash. Lightsabers aren’t sacred, but they aren’t a joke either.
But I do wish that Rey used her own saber in TROS. By far the best part of Trevorrow’s discarded script was Rey building a double bladed lightsaber out of her staff. Combine that idea with the yellow blade shown at the end of TROS, and you would have a wonderful, unconventional weapon for Rey to wield in the final movie.
I’m sure I (and potentially we, my memory is terrible) have had this discussion a dozen times before, but I don’t think ‘let go of the past’ is meant to be the real message of the movie. Luke is meant to be wrong at the beginning. Kylo is meant to be wrong.
I’ve always read the message of the movie as ‘the past is flawed, but there are things from it worth saving’.
The ‘laser sword’ thing never bugged me because Anakin called em’ that in Phantom Menace, and George Lucas would call them laser swords all the time in BTS featurettes for all sorts of stuff.