Disney Reveals Real Working Lightsaber?
Ever since Luke Skywalker ignited his father’s lightsaber and Obi-Wan said the iconic words “an elegant weapon for a more civilized age,” kids of all ages have been keen on playing with laser-swords.
The very first ones were probably just broom sticks or tubes that were wrapped in blue and red paper, but that combined with a lot of imagination was enough to reprise the Vader – Obi-Wan duel from A New Hope.
The first commercially available “lightsaber” didn’t come from Kenner and was in no way licensed from Lucasfilm. Called the “Force Beam,” it was basically a red flashlight with a plastic tube attached to it. This fabulous device is shown in the header of this article.
Kenner followed up in 1978 with an inflatable yellow lightsaber, which wasn’t at all screen accurate, but it at least matched the color of the saber of Luke Skywalker’s action figure.
Since then, dozens if not hundreds of lightsaber toys and replicas have come out, from simple plastic toys that are only a slight improvement from the “Force Beam,” to screen accurate hilts combined with illuminated blades and original sound effects. Some of these are primarily collectors’ items, while others can actually be used for real duels without breaking the blade after a few hits.
But all these sabers share one of the following disadvantages: the “blade” is either a (transparent) tube of a predefined length that lights up from the inside from hilt to top when activated, or consists of a few connected tubes that are collapsed into one another and can be extended like the antenna of a radio.
Until now!
On April 8, Josh D'Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, hosted a virtual event called “A Special Look Inside Disney Parks.” While the focus of the presentation laid on the upcoming Avengers campus, D’Amaro ended the event in a Steve Jobs like “there is one more thing”:
He took out the hilt of a lightsaber and ignited it, while stating, “It’s real.”
There is no official video of this presentation available (yet), and those who participated in the presentation were not allowed to take photos or videos of it. But from what was shared online, it seems that there was neither a tube nor some clunky elements, but rather an illuminated blade that shot out of the hilt, just like in the movies.
Back on March 16, 2017, Disney Enterprises Inc filed a patent application for “Sword device with retractable, internally illuminated blade.” The patent was granted on September 4, 2018 and can be found here. The text is rather lengthy and technical, but the most relevant paragraphs are the following:
“..the special effects device includes two long plastic cylinders that are cut lengthwise. These two pieces (or blade body members) are then each rolled perpendicular to their length (or their central axis), which creates compact cylinders of material of relatively small volume that can be provided on a pair of spools or reels. The spools holding the blade body members, along with other blade-producing elements, are housed within the body of the hilt assembly of the special effects device or lightsaber prop.
To extend the blade, a motor provided in the hilt body is operated to unroll the rolled/spooled plastic blade body members from their reels/spools with each member (or blade half) acting much like a metal carpenter's tape measure. Each blade body member passes through a blade forming guideway or passageway that acts to “zip” the two semi-cylindrical blade body members together (or with portions along their length overlapping each other or one nesting inside the other) as they leave the hilt body, thereby forming the energy blade. To retract the blade, the process is reversed with the motor acting to wind the pair of spools to reel or wind the extended blade body members back into the hilt body and onto the pair of spools/reels.
The special effects device or lightsaber prop is designed to illuminate the two blade body members internally or from within the interior space of the blade to provide the illusion of a hilt-illuminated energy blade.”
There are also some illustrations that give a vague picture of how this device might work:
There is no confirmation that the device that D'Amaro showed off is the physical representation of this patent, but it proves that Disney’s engineers have been working on such a device for quite some time and seem to have finally cracked it.
As for what this device could be used for, the patent describes “a theatrical prop, toy, or collector's item” as possible use cases. A less abstract purpose for such a device could be the planned Star Wars hotel “Galactic Starcruiser,” which is said to include a training area where kids (and hopefully adults a well) will be able to use lightsabers against training probes, and this is where this new device could come into play. The patent also includes schematics showing that the device will be able to block and to deflect “blaster fire,” just like a real lightsaber.
Further down the road, it is also possible that these new sabers could eventually replace the sabers that visitors can currently build at Savi’s Workshop at Galaxy’s Edge.
Anyway, it seems that in a not-too-distant future, we will be able to use a lightsaber that after more than 40 years finally feels real.
If we can manage to save the money for an expensive trip on the “Galactic Starcruiser,” and if we are not too far down on the waiting list for such an adventure…
Source(s): Collider