I think what zombie is talking about is the two wide shots, in those they actually made a new saber from scratch in '97, at least in the establishing shot, I'm not sure of the other, have to take a look. If you look carefully, you can see that it's slightly longer and lacks the original sabers characteristic flickering.

Edit: I did take a look, and both those shots seems to just have a digitally extended top, you can actually see where the original saber ended by looking at the glow, the tip of the blade doesn't have any.