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When Luke is fighting Vader in Return of the Jedi, as the Emperor is egging him on, Luke stops. He turns off his saber and tosses it aside. Vader throws Palpatine over the edge, and Luke drags Vader to the shuttle. Since it wouldn't fit the narrative and take away from the story, we obviously don't see Luke pick it up (do we?).

Are we to assume that he lost another lightsaber (just as his father lost them frequently)?

Or do we assume it was recovered off-screen, maybe a force grab while dragging dying Vader?

Or, is this explained elsewhere?

Or do I just need to rewatch the film again? It's been a while, some details are fuzzy.

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Yes, it was recovered.

We see it in the "celebration on Endor" scene a few minutes later, just after he's cremated his father.

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Under the circumstances, we can assume that when he "hurled it aside", it simply rolled under the staircase behind the Emperor

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According to the factbook "Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy: The Ultimate Guide to the Incredible Locations of Episodes IV, V, and VI", the saber was almost exactly where I guessed it was...

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— Answered by Valorum on this question at the Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange

This question is essentially a dupe of an almost identical question over at scifi.stackexchange.

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Yes. It is recovered, but there is no Disney Canon explanation except for "It's a long story" as we are told in The Force Awakens. As we learned there, Rey is given the saber and presents it to old man Luke at the finale.

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    That's not correct. The sabre given to Rey is Anakin's original sabre (as seen in the Prequels), and which was used by Luke until he lost it (and his hand) in Empire. That sabre had a blue blade. The sabre in Jedi is a new one which Luke built himself. It has a green blade. Yes, he does recover it - see the link in my answer to the OP. – Tim Nov 3 '16 at 22:09
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    The lightsaber given to Rey in Force Awakens is not Luke's green (Return of the Jedi) saber, it's Luke's blue one from Empire Strikes Back, which was lost. According to wiki: "The lightsaber, still clutched by Luke Skywalker’s hand, had become lodged in one of Cloud City’s lower air shafts and eventually was recovered by a maintenance drone." And the TFA Visual Dictionary says: "Luke lost it in battle on Cloud City, but someone salvaged it from the city's industrial depths", so it's still a mystery how it ended up in Takodana. – Ghoti and Chips Nov 4 '16 at 13:35

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