We don’t see this part in the movies, but what really
happened is that when Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious was finally given
absolute authority through the emergency powers proposed by Jar Jar Binks, he
mandated that Jedi light sabers had to switch to CFL blades, which like their
Earth light bulb counterparts, barely function, take forever to turn on, strobe
often, work unreliably, are filled with toxic materials, burn out ridiculously
quickly, and have to be recycled at a special facility all the way on the other
side of the galaxy so that nobody is ever willing to go to the trouble to
recycle them properly. And so the Empire catches the Jedi just throwing their
CFL light saber blades in the trash, and so they move to arrest them; but the
Jedi fight back, but with their crappy, unreliable CFL light sabers, they
cannot fight in any effective manner, and they are captured and executed by the
Sith with their real light sabers. (<Because they are evil, the Sith don’t
obey the new law mandating the new CFL light saber blades.) And it’s all
because of CFLs!
