hydrospanner said:
Not sure how I felt about the force having a lightsaber calling out to a specific individual, that is something we haven’t really seen before and I found it a bit distracting. It wasn’t that big of a deal when Luke lost it… he just built a new one and moved on. It seems that the saber’s importance and the entire story of how Maz came into possession of it will end up being a mystery we will never get an answer too. Although the movie does end with Rey presenting it to Luke so possibly some of those questions will be answered in the next film.

Well, at least we’re back to a more magical sense of what the Force is, rather than the pseudo-science of the PT. However, I don’t think the saber itself holds any power, but it’s an item that has been in contact with Luke, thereby having a connection to him. It’s kind of like the Dagobah-cave.sequence in ESB, it’s not really explained, but it does have that mysterious, magical feeling to it. So I personally really liked it (it was a bit modern in terms of execution and not quite as effective as the ESB scene in my opinion, but I really liked the concept.) Abrams is after all a fan who remembers SW from back in the 70’s so in his mind the Force might still have a strong connection to artifacts, which was fairly common in the early EU.

What I’m more curious about however, is how the hell the lightsaber ended up in Kanata’s possession in the first place. They kind of just brushed past it. Hopefully this will be explained later, or at least in some tie-in material.