Star Wars Force FX Lightsaber: Luke Skywalker

When I was growing up, the first Star Wars movie we had was Return of the Jedi. I had seen the previous ones, but when I was presented the choice of owning one of the original 3 Star Wars movies, I picked Return of the Jedi. No explanation why. Maybe I was just a crazy kid, or I was dropped. Hardcore Star Wars fans will say that Return of the Jedi is definitely the worse of the original trilogy, but over the years of thinking hard I have come to the conclusion why ROTJ was my favorite one growing up. It was because of Luke's green bladed Lightsaber. As a kid, Luke's green lightsaber always captivated me and the luminescent glow and hum of his first self-made lightsaber was such a treat to see, that I popped in Return of the Jedi time after time (between rewinds of course).

So it was obvious I had to obtain this when they were reissued.

This is Luke's first personal-made lightsaber. The one he used in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back was Anakin's saber which was passed down. The green one was Luke's first saber he assembled after becoming a full fledged Jedi.

Just a small bit of trivia: for several decades there was a rumor that between The Empire Strikes back and Return of the Jedi some film was shot where Luke constructed this saber. Over the years Lucas and even Mark Hamill have denied such a clip existed. However, it was revealed during Celebration V that this clip did indeed exist. It was shown during Celebration V and will be included in the Star Wars Blu-Ray Collection coming out at the end of this month.

Some background on the FX Saber's, they normally range from $130-150 a piece. Originally they were created by Master Replicas and made in very limited quantities. The ROTJ Luke Saber was made especially in low quantities and the price of it quickly skyrocket to over $500. This made it pretty much impossible for me to ever obtain one, which made me quite sad because it was truly the only FX Saber I wanted to own. Luckily, Master Replicas sold the FX Saber license to Hasbro and Hasbro started pumping them out. When it was announced they would re-issue this one I immediately pre-ordered it. Here's the result:

The Lightsaber takes 3 AAA batteries. You can see it directly attaches to the sound module.





When ignited, the blade glows bright green. Because of the string of LED's that travel up the blade its not an instant on or off. Also, the Saber makes humming sounds when its swung around (best use of an accelerometer ever). It also has a detector to make movie accurate lightsaber...sizzling and flesh burning sounds when its hit.